NSW: Man who hired undercover cop to harm creditor jailed

AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-2000
NSW: Man who hired undercover cop to harm creditor jailed

A Coffs Harbour cabinetmaker has been jailed for at least four years for hiring an
undercover policeman to seriously injure a man who had rejected his sexual advances.

Justice MICHAEL ADAMS has found ROBERT ERNEST NEVILLE'S main motivation was his inability
to pay a debt to MICHAEL JOHN DUCK, who he had stalked after the sexual rejection.

He also found NEVILLE had been indifferent as to whether Mr DUCK was killed or not,
telling the undercover officer to please himself as to whether he maimed or murdered him.

Fifty-four-year-old NEVILLE pleaded guilty in the New South Wales Supreme Court to
soliciting an undercover officer in early 1998 to maliciously do grievous bodily harm
to 30-year-old Mr DUCK, at Coffs Harbour in northern NSW.

While the judge accepted NEVILLE suffered from a delusional disorder at the time, he
found his prime motivation was his belief he would be bankrupted because he could not
pay his debt to Mr DUCK.

AAP RTV mss/ah/jn

KEYWORD: NEVILLE (SYDNEY)

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