Photograph by Sarah Ackerman
An Australian businessman has been found guilty of killing his ballerina fiancée by throwing her from the balcony of their high-rise balcony in Sydney.
Simon Gittany picked up Lisa Cecilia Harnum after she said she was leaving him, and threw her off their balcony in July 2011 in a fit of rage. Harnum had previously tried to run from the flat and escape the man who had control of her entire life, including monitoring her text messages and other communications, but the judge heard that Gittany dragged her back inside kicking and screaming – an act captured on nearby CCTV.
The judge said that Gittany likely knocked Harnum unconscious before throwing her to her death from their 15th floor balcony.
Gittany had plead not guilty to the murder charge, claiming that Harnum ran to the balcony to try and escape or call for help before falling over the edge, but Justice Lucy McCallum described this series of events as “inherently implausible”.
3 Comments
Note to Descrier – Although the photo attached to your article is a great picture of a Sydney building, its nowhere near where this horrific crime took place.
Thanks for your note Sal.
Sadly we couldn’t license a photo of the building itself, so went with a stock photo of high-rises in Sydney instead.
We’re working on a way to make this clearer in our articles in the future to avoid any confusion.
I can appreciate the difficulty of obtaining a licensed photo for your article. Would prefer you didn’t use a photo at all then. But thank you for your response. Kind regards.