Connor Godfrey broke down in tears as the family of a man he accidentally choked to death told a court of their pain.
The 22-year-old pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the death of 43-year-old Giuseppe Pagano following an altercation at a Sydney apartment block in the early hours of Easter Sunday, 2021.
The court accepted Godfrey acted in self-defence after Pagano attacked and punched him but found he should have discontinued a chokehold before it turned fatal.
At the time of the incident, Godfrey had drunk a large amount of alcohol and Pagano had consumed methamphetamines, the court was told.
Victim impact statements from Pagano’s 18-year-old daughter Anastasia and older brother Darren Clifton were read out to the court during a sentence hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
As Clifton left the stand, Godfrey called to him, “I’m so sorry for each of you”.
Mr Clifton replied, “It’s too late for sorry bud”.
Godfrey was initially accused of murdering Pagano, but a trial over that charge was abandoned earlier this year and the jury dismissed.
At the start of that trial, prosecutor Mark Hay told the jury Godfrey had met Pagano while walking down George St from Circular Quay and was trying to source drugs.
Anastasia Pagano, whose statement was read in her absence, said despite her father’s drug addiction he always tried his best for her.
“What most people don’t usually understand is when you’re an addict it consumes your whole life and the lives of those around you,” she said.
“He was a kind soul, fighting a rough battle.
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“No matter what happened in the past, my love for him never went away.”
Clifton said in his emotional statement to the court he doubted Godfrey was telling the truth about the events that led to his brother’s death.
“There are only two people that have the truth of what happened in that apartment,” he said.
“One of those is dead and the other sits before us today.
“Godfrey knows exactly what occurred and I doubt he’s giving the truth.”
Justice Richard Cavanagh said Godfrey had good prospects of rehabilitation as he was a young man who had remained drug and violence-free while in custody.
But he said the 22-year-old should expect a sentence on the basis that he took another man’s life.
“He must have known at the very least that by continuing to place a chokehold on Mr Pagano, there was a real risk of killing him,” Cavanagh said.
“At some point in time, he continued to apply that hold and that’s the excessive nature of the offending.”
The matter has been listed for sentence on November 3.
