Emma Lovell: Australian teenager cleared of murdering Suffolk woman in Queensland break-in

A teenager who broke into the home of a British woman in Australia has been cleared of her murder.

Emma Lovell, 41, emigrated to Australia from Suffolk in 2011 with her husband Lee and their two daughters.

She was killed in North Lakes, Queensland, on Boxing Day in 2022 while fending off two teenage intruders.

The mother died of a single stab wound to her heart and one of the pair, who cannot be named because he was under 18 at the time of the attack, was jailed for 14 years in May after pleading guilty to her murder.

The second man, who was 17 at the time of the attack and also cannot be named, appeared at Brisbane’s Supreme Court last week.

Justice Michael Copley, who heard the case without a jury, found the man not guilty of murder on Thursday, as well as a malicious act with intent and unlawful wounding.

He found the defendant guilty of burglary and assault.

“I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was a party to this murder,” the judge said.

In his sentencing remarks in the original trial, Justice Tom Sullivan said Mrs Lovell was described as “an energetic and beloved mother, wife, daughter, and sister”.

The court heard the couple had tried to fend off the intruders after they were woken by their dogs barking at about 11.30pm.

Mr Lovell was injured during a “physical struggle directly outside the front door” which then moved to the front lawn, where his wife was fatally stabbed.

Although the defendant was found guilty of burglary, he was cleared of the circumstance of aggravation of being armed with an offensive weapon.

The prosecution argued that the accused “had knowledge at the time of the commission of all of the offences that his co-offender was in possession of a knife”, according to the judgment.

But Justice Copley said he could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant knew his co-offender, “H”, was armed with a knife.

The judge also found he could not be sure to the criminal standard that the man was “a party to this murder”, nor that he was a party to unlawfully wounding Mr Lovell or committing a malicious act with intent.

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