An Ordinary Person

World Premiere

Is it impossible to murder a homosexual in New Zealand?

In 2004, David McNee, well-known TV personality and interior designer in his 50s, was found brutally killed in his luxury home.
The trial of his killer, Phillip Layton Edwards, raises uncomfortable questions about New Zealand attitudes. It almost seemed like McNee was being made responsible for his own violent death. The media called McNee an “interior decorator”, “television celebrity” and a man with an “out of control sexual appetite”. The accused was a young “homeless” Maori”Maori”,
laying bare the hypocritical standards and values of our society.

Edward’s lawyers argued that he either lacked intent to kill, or that he was provoked into killing by McNee’s sexual advances. Edwards was convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter and the same provocation defence was successful in another case. An Ordinary Person includes interviews with lawyers, the Crown Prosecutor, academic commentators and a journalist who followed the cases. Director Potter interweaves the interview material with a stylised recreation that tells the story that props up the use of provocation as the ‘homosexual advance defence’ to murder. Her film is the first film that tries to set the story straight and in the process, provide some dignity and voice to a life that was unnecessarily taken away.