Heartbreaking moment mother confronted her daughter’s murderer

A grieving mother has confronted the Muay Thai expert who brutally bashed her daughter to death during a drug-addled rage, telling a court of the heartbreak that had rippled through her family’s life.

Sayle Kenneth Newson faces decades in prison after he was earlier this year found guilty of bashing his partner Carly McBride to death and dumping her body in bushland.

Ms McBride went missing after leaving her ex-partner’s Muswellbrook home on September 30, 2014.

The mystery of the 31-year-old’s disappearance gripped the state before her body was discovered nearly two years later in a shallow grave in bushland just metres from the road at Owens Gap near Scone.

Newson pleaded not guilty to Ms McBride’s murder, but in June - seven years after she was fatally bashed - a NSW Supreme Court jury found him guilty.

The court heard that Newson had taken ice on the day he intercepted Ms McBride and rained down blows to her head, ribs and back, leaving her with 39 fractures.

Crown prosecutor Lee Carr said Newson had 20 professional fights for 20 wins and had trained with world champions.

“The deceased weighed 50 kgs,” Mr Carr said.

Ms McBride’s mother Lorraine Williams vainly attempted to hold back tears as she read out a powerful victim impact statement to Justice Mark Ierace during a sentence hearing on Monday morning.

“Carly should be here living her life,” Ms Williams told the court as Newson watched on from Cessnock Correctional Centre with his head hung.

“After today I never want to hear, speak to or see the man who took my beautiful daughter’s life ever again.

“He did the worst thing a human could do to another person when he murdered her. He no longer has any power to hurt me and I refuse to think of him any more.”

She said she had constantly fallen into a “black hole of grief” since her daughter’s death, and she was at one point homeless because her lease had run out and she could not cope with the fight to find new accommodation.

She said she had become isolated and lost her love of life, describing her existence as a “blur of grief and anxiety” filled with recurring nightmares.

“I just want my old life back,” she said.

“I don’t want to be known as a mother of a murdered child, that’s a club I would never wish on anyone. There is no going back.”

Ms Williams detailed the horrific day in 2016 when police knocked on her door and she and her ex-partner went to the morgue to identify her daughter’s body.

“It was the worst day of my life,” she said.

“The grief, loss and horror I experienced that day is unimaginable.

“I knew she was gone but I didn’t want it to be true.”

Newson has filed a notice of motion to appeal his guilty verdict.

“We say the offending was spontaneous and unplanned,” his barrister Chris Watson said.

Mr Watson argued that Newson’s offending sat in the middle range in terms of objective seriousness for the offence of murder.

Justice Ierace will hand down his sentence at a later date.