Parker’s bail application rejected

By CHRISTOPHER YOWAT
The Supreme Court in Port Moresby yesterday dismissed a bail application filed by convicted businessman Justin Parker.
Parker, 46, the owner of Golden Valley Enterprise, was found guilty by the National Court of killing his aircraft engineer, Lapan Nason, on June 6, 2015, in Port Moresby.
This was after Nason had failed to attend a Civil Aviation Safety Authority inspection of an aircraft owned by Parker.
The Supreme Court yesterday found that the grounds presented before it were insufficient.
The court found that Parker had an arguable case before the court.
However, circumstances that led to the murder of Nason, showed that Parker was the instigator of the fight that led to the death.
Parker’s bail application was filed against his conviction and sentence for unlawful killing.
The court heard that Parker had two grounds in his appeal.
These were that he had high prospects in his appeal, and the welfare of his family was at stake.
The court dismissed the ground of welfare after it found that welfare could not be used in an appeal.
The court did find that Parker had high prospects in his appeal which had four grounds.
The court heard that Parker claimed the trial judge erred in his ruling after he did not carefully assess the mitigating factors before him.
The court heard Parker claimed that he was indited for murder, but he was later convicted for unlawful murder based on his own sworn evidence.
This was after the evidence given by Nason’s daughter was rejected by the court during the trial.
The court was told Parker’s evidence stated that he had only swung at Nason while holding on to his collar.
He said Nason later fell and hit his head on the cement which resulted in his death. That was the reason why Parker was found guilty for unlawful murder.