Life sentence for Kiwi's murder

Life sentence for Kiwi's murder


The man who pushed New Zealander Andy Marshall to his death from the second storey of a Perth pub has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Stefan Pahia Schmidt, 26, will serve a minimum of 14 years, after being sentenced in the Supreme Court of Western Australia today. He was found guilty of murder after a two-week trial in June.

The sentence was backdated to May last year when Schmidt was arrested, which means he will be eligible for release in 2025, at age 40.

Marshall was the first cousin of Scott Guy, the Feilding farmer who was gunned down in his driveway in July 2010.

He was out enjoying a night with mates at Cottesloe's Ocean Beach Hotel last May when he was murdered.

Marshall was following his dream of becoming a professional musician in Australia, and had lived in Perth for two years as the drummer for local band, Rich Widow.

It took just five hours for the jury to find Schmidt, a trained boxer and kickboxer with links to Perth's outlaw Rock Machine motorcycle gang, guilty of murder, rejecting less severe charges of manslaughter and unlawful assault causing death.

Defence lawyer Tom Percy had argued Schmidt merely fended Andy off - not pushed him intentionally at a second-storey window – describing the murder as a "dreadful accident".

But witnesses spoke of an "agitated" Schmidt pushing Marshall with a forceful, thrusting motion and also viewed footage of Schmidt punching another pub patron in the face after he'd pushed Andy through a plate glass window.

Crown prosecutor Amanda Forrester last week said that a life sentence was entirely justified, and there needed to be  strong deterrents to acts of random violence in licensed venues.

The court was told Marshall had been talking to the girls with his back to the window when Schmidt swore at him and pushed him through it.

Schmidt then fled the pub, glancing to where Marshall lay dying on the footpath outside before departing.

His sentencing was expected on Friday, but Justice Ralph Simmonds deferred it until today, while he considered matters including an unrelated 2010 case where a sentence of less than life was sought for murder.

Marshall’s parents live in Tauranga and his father, Alan, flew to Perth for both the trial and  sentencing, and on Friday read out in court a victim impact statement in which he spoke of the devastation of losing his son.

Alan Marshall said he felt like collapsing when Western Australia police informed him of his son’s death.

“Time slipped into a slow-motion nightmare,” he said.

“Not a day starts without a sick feeling and a deep abiding pain.”

Marshall's mother, Wendy, and sister and brother gave their victim impact statements via videolink from New Zealand.

Wendy Marshall likened her horror to being in “an avalanche of black snow”.

“The sense of loss is overwhelming,” she said.