A man who ambushed and shot dead one of his close friends outside the Hughes shops has told the victim's family he is sorry "with every bone in my body".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Kai Yuen, 28, pleaded guilty to shooting his friend Brendan Scott Welsh, 28, at close range with a double-barrel shotgun as he sat in a car in the streets behind the shops in May 2010.
The shooting, which Yuen maintained was accidental, came after an argument between the pair over a set of keys, Yuen's housemate's car and escalating threats and property damage.
Yuen lured Mr Welsh to the Hughes shops, emerged from behind a wall and ran at the car, pointing a shotgun at the driver's side window. Two rounds were fired into the car, the first fatally hitting Mr Welsh in the chest.
Yuen is facing a sentencing hearing in the ACT Supreme Court, where the Crown is pushing for a life sentence.
He sat in the witness box on Tuesday afternoon and read aloud a statement he had prepared on the killing, in which he repeatedly apologised to Mr Welsh's family.
"What I have done is unforgivable," he began. "I wish I could go back … and change what transpired."
No one should have to suffer as Mr Welsh and his family had, and they had "every right to hate me, every right to wish harm on me", he said.
Yuen spoke of Mr Welsh's children, who he said had now suffered so much pain in their innocent, young lives.
He said that what he had done to those children "haunts me every day of my life, and will continue to do so until the end of my life. I want every member of Brendan's family to know I am sorry, with every bone in my body, I'm sorry," he said.
He spoke of his desire to atone for his wrongs by rehabilitating himself and addressing his anger issues, saying he didn't want to hate himself any more.
"I murdered Brendan Welsh, but I refuse to believe I'm a murderer," he said.
The sentencing hearing follows an argument between the Crown and defence lawyers over the facts of the shooting, including whether the shots were fired accidentally, as Yuen claims, or deliberately.
Justice Hilary Penfold gave an early indication of her findings on Monday that the two shots fired by Yuen were deliberate, but were intended to cause great harm and not necessarily to kill Mr Welsh.
On Tuesday, Yuen again told the court he never meant to shoot or kill his friend.
But he said "the result is the same, Brendan was murdered, and I murdered him".
The court is also sentencing Yuen over a vicious jail bashing last year that left an inmate needing facial reconstruction surgery.
Yuen repeatedly hit the man in the face with a vacuum cleaner pole as he sat playing cards at a table in a common area, leaving him requiring five plates in his face.
Yuen told the author of a pre-sentence report that he had been "backed into a corner", and that the other inmate had made threats against him.
He said his options were to "wait and cop it, in the moment fight it out, or strike first", the court heard.
Yuen told the author of the report that it was only possible to make bad or worse decisions in jail.
His lawyers are seeking a sentence of 18 years' jail, with a non-parole period of between 14 and 15 years.
They say Yuen has shown "genuine remorse", a will to rehabilitate, and a "quite remarkable" insight into the causes of his behaviour.
Yuen also entered a guilty plea, albeit at a late stage, and his lawyers argue his moral culpability for the killing is reduced because the intention was to cause great harm, not to kill.
The Crown is expected to continue its arguments for a life sentence when the hearing continues on Wednesday morning.
