The life sentence of a teen farmer involved in the murder of his colleague is set to be quashed. Ethan Webster was 18 when he and William Mark Candy, 39, murdered Jacob Mills Ramsay by beating him, chaining him to a car by his ankle and dragging him 1km along a gravel tanker track. They then dumped Ramsay’s body into a man-made rubbish pit at the dairy farm in Oaonui, South Taranaki, where they all worked. The July 2022 murder was motivated by an alleged “small” debt Ramsay had racked up with the offenders. Candy and Webster were workers on the same farm as Ramsay. While the two had been in their roles for at least three years, Ramsay’s employment had begun about one month before his death. Ramsay’s widow, Sarah Tasker, was pregnant with their third child when he was killed. Webster and Candy admitted murdering the 33-year-old and were sentenced to life imprisonment in the High Court at New Plymouth in March 2023. Jacob Mills Ramsay was found dead at a South Taranaki property on July 31, 2022. Photo / Supplied Candy was given a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 17 years, while Webster received a 12-year MPI. Jodie Shannon Hughes, Candy’s then partner, was charged alongside them but was acquitted of murder at a trial and found guilty of manslaughter. She is serving a sentence of five years and six months. But whether Webster had the mental capacity to admit murder, and if his life sentence was manifestly unjust, has since come under the microscope of the Court of Appeal. Appeal against sentence and conviction Today, the senior court released its decision in which it concluded Webster’s life sentence would be quashed once it had determined a fixed sentence to replace it. The new sentence follows information about Webster that has come to light since his sentencing. Despite his imminent success in his appeal against his sentence, the Court of Appeal found there was no miscarriage of justice in relation to his conviction. According to the decision, Webster has since been diagnosed with mental impairments attributable to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). While it was determined there were no issues with his fitness to plead before he admitted the murder charge, more reports were ordered after his sentencing to assist in his appeal against his life sentence. Ethan Webster appealed against his life sentence and conviction for murdering Jacob Ramsay. Photo / Andy MacDonald Those assessments found he met the criteria for mild intellectual disability, confirmed he had dyslexia and also led to the FASD diagnosis. This gave rise to an appeal against Webster’s conviction, on the grounds intellectual disability was a recognised impairment for the test of unfitness to stand trial within the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act. It was submitted he was, on balance, unfit at the time, leading to a miscarriage of justice. An intellectual disability may also have been relevant to whether Webster had the capacity to form the necessary intent to meet a charge of murder. More assessments followed, ordered by the Crown and the court, which further confirmed Webster did suffer cognitive deficits likely related to FASD, but found he did not meet the criteria for an “intellectual disability”. William Candy was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Jacob Ramsay. One report concluded that whether he was fit to plead and stand trial at the time was unclear and “finely balanced”, while another determined there were ”reasonable grounds to consider” that, “on the balance of probabilities”, Webster may have been unfit at the time. However, both concluded that if he were to currently plead and stand trial he would be fit to do so, with the provision of a communication assistant. In considering Webster’s appeal against conviction, the Court of Appeal was not satisfied the evidence proved he was unfit to plead at the relevant time. “Rather, it establishes that, while Mr Webster may have benefited from a communicatio...