Carly McBride appeal: convicted murderer Sayle Newson…

Carly McBride appeal: convicted murderer Sayle Newson to learn fate

NEARLY a decade after she was brutally murdered and dumped by the side of a lonely stretch of road, the case of who killed Carly McBride could reach its ultimate conclusion on Wednesday.

At 10.15am, the state's highest court - the Court of Criminal Appeal - will deliver judgment in the all grounds appeal of Sayle Kenneth Newson, either overturning his conviction and ordering a re-trial or dismissing his appeal, leaving him to serve the remainder of his maximum 27-year jail term.

The CCA sat in Newcastle in December for only the second time since 2005 when lawyers for Newson argued he should be acquitted or a new trial ordered due to what they say were errors made by the trial judge.

Newson's lawyers have also filed an appeal against the severity of his jail term, which will also be determined on Wednesday morning.

Sayle Kenneth Newson, now 46, was in 2021 found guilty of murdering Ms McBride.

Carly McBride was murdered in 2014 but her body wasn't found until 2016. Her boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, Sayle Newson, was later convicted of her murder.

The jury was left with no doubt he was the person who intercepted the 31-year-old after she left a house at Muswellbrook on September 30, 2014, and inflicted a number of blows to her head and back before dumping her body near the side of a stretch of road outside Scone.

Ms McBride's skeletal remains were not found until August, 2016.

Newson, who had been in a brief relationship with Ms McBride at the time of her murder, was later jailed for a maximum of 27 years, with a non-parole period of 19 years and nine months, making him eligible for parole in August 2038.

Newson's lawyers, led by Sydney barrister Winston Terracini, KC, and Newcastle solicitor Mark Ramsland, launched an appeal against Newson's conviction, arguing he should be acquitted or a new trial ordered due to what they say were errors made by the trial judge, Justice Mark Ierace, SC.

Sayle Kenneth Newson was found guilty of murdering Carly McBride at Muswellbrook in 2014. He has appealed against his conviction and sentence.

Those "errors", which now form grounds of appeal, include not allowing the defence to explore an alleged "financial motive" of a key witness, not leaving the alternative charge of manslaughter by unlawful or dangerous act to the jury and a failure to give the jury a direction about drawing inferences in what was an entirely circumstantial case.

The final ground of appeal was a broad one; that the verdict is unreasonable and cannot be supported by the evidence.

Meanwhile, James Anthony Cunneen - who was convicted of dumping Ms McBride's body and lying to protect Newson - does not yet have a date for his conviction appeal judgment, despite his appeal being heard two months earlier.

Cunneen was in 2022 found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder and later jailed for a maximum of seven-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of four years.

At his appeal in October, Cunneen's legal team argued a conviction certificate showing Newson had been found guilty of murdering Ms McBride should not have been admissible during Cunneen's trial and said he should either be acquitted or face a re-trial.