Tara Brown murder: Estranged partner Lionel Patea pleads guilty to killing Gold Coast mother
Updated
Former Bandido bikie Lionel Patea has pleaded guilty to the bashing murder of his ex-partner Tara Brown on the Gold Coast.
Patea ran Ms Brown's car off a road at Molendinar on the Gold Coast in September 2015.
She was trapped in her upturned car and Patea bashed her with a metal plate.
The 24-year-old mother-of-one died a day later in hospital.
Patea's trial began this morning in the Supreme Court in Brisbane, where he pleaded guilty to murder.
Patea and Ms Brown had been in a relationship since 2011 and had a daughter in 2012.
The court heard how Patea chased Ms Brown at high speed through the Gold Coast after she dropped their daughter at day care.
The now 25-year-old turned himself in to police about 30 minutes after the attack with self-inflicted stab wounds and told police about "doing something bad".
Ms Brown was taken to hospital with "non-survivable head injuries", including six face and skull fractures.
The court was told Ms Brown had wanted to break-up with Patea in 2015.
Ms Brown was granted a domestic violence order, and interim custody arrangements were made giving Patea joint access to their daughter.
But within days, he hunted Ms Brown down and killed her.
Patea's statement read aloud by lawyer
Outside court, Patea's solicitor Campbell MacCallum read a statement from his client, saying he pleaded guilty to avoid causing more pain for Ms Brown's family.
Photo:
Lawyer Campbell MacCallum read Lionel Patea's statement to reporters. (ABC News: Donna Field)
"Today I appear before the court to accept full responsibility for my actions against Tara Brown," the statement read.
"I do this knowing the enormous pain I have caused Tara's family, her loved ones, and also my own family who love Tara deeply.
"I accept without reservation the punishment imposed on me by the justice system today. I will also be ultimately judged by God.
"I know Tara will never be forgotten, nor will I ever be forgiven."
Mr MacCallum said the Department of Child Safety would determine when Patea had access to his daughter.
'Misogynistic narcissist'
Family and friends of Ms Brown packed the court room this morning, with many standing and emotional when his guilty plea was read.
Ms Brown's mother Natalie Hinton sobbed as she read out a victim impact statement to the court, describing her daughter's killer as a "monster".
Ms Hinton outlined the effect her death has had on her tight-knit family.
"My whole world came down around me," Ms Hinton said.
"This misogynistic narcissist had murdered my baby girl.
"My life is not the same, it has been changed forever because of one person's selfish act.
"The pain in my heart from the enormous hole Tara's death has left is indescribable."
She said when she saw her daughter in hospital she was "broken" and "a shadow of her beauty".
Ms Hinton told the court her now four-year-old granddaughter was not aware "of the full extent of this monster's brutality".
"[The granddaughter] and Tara were inseparable — a bond like no other, and at the tender age of three her innocent life was destroyed," she said.
"What father would do this to his own child?"
Ms Hinton said her granddaughter asked for her mother every day.
"I have and continue to cuddle and comfort her through her tears of missing mummy," she said.
"Her sobs full of heartache and sadness, the weight and intensity of her sobs is the saddest thing ever."
But Ms Hinton said her daughter's death had made a nationwide impact and led to some positive changes to public awareness and domestic violence laws.
'She was screaming at me to help her'
A witness who tried to help Ms Brown during the attack, Leesa Kennedy, told the court what she saw Patea do to Ms Brown had "horrified me to my core".
"Even though I tried to stop you ... I felt hopeless and helpless," she said in a victim impact statement.
"She was screaming at me to help her from you. Did I do my best, did I try hard enough? I felt like I had failed Tara."
In October 2015, a police investigation into her death heard allegations Ms Brown had sought police assistance with domestic violence issues in the week before her death but was turned away.
Topics: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, murder-and-manslaughter, crime, domestic-violence, brisbane-4000, qld, australia, molendinar-4214, southport-4215
First posted
