Two family members of British backpacker Grace Millane who was murdered in New Zealand have been made OBEs.
The newly-graduated university student was strangled to death in a hotel in Auckland the day before her 22nd birthday after meeting her murderer Jesse Shane Kempson on Tinder on December 1 2018.
Kempson was found guilty by a unanimous verdict in November the following year.
Following her death, Grace’s mother, Gillian Jayne Millane, and cousin, Hannah Louise O'Callaghan, co-founded a charity in her name called Love Grace, which aims to "empower victims of domestic abuse."
The pair, both from Essex, have been made Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours list for "services to charitable fundraising and tackling violence against women".
The Love Grace charity collects handbags and fills them with toiletries for domestic abuse victims, as well as raising money for White Ribbon charities in the UK and New Zealand, which educate men and boys on attitudes that can contribute to violence against women and girls.
The body of the Lincoln University graduate, who had been on her gap year, was found buried in a suitcase in Waitakere Ranges, a forested area outside the city of Auckland.
In February 2020 Kempson was jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years, with the judge rejecting his argument that the pair had rough sex that went too far.
He was later found guilty of raping another British tourist, who he also met on Tinder, eight months before he killed Ms Millane.
The rape victim had reportedly gone to the police after recognising Kempson from media coverage of the death of Ms Millane.
The sex offender was also convicted in a separate trial, with a different victim, of threatening to kill, two charges of assault with a weapon, three assaults and two counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection at a trial in October, court documents state.
New Zealand Supreme Court banned Kempson from being named in any of the criminal proceedings until it was lifted at the end of 2020.
