Jury ‘must not guess’, says judge

A man who punched his lifelong friend in the face before taking his car has had a robbery conviction scrubbed from his record.

But the alleged robber did not get off scot-free, with the Court of Appeal still finding he committed a crime.

Trevor Patrick Lamb was found guilty in late 2017 of robbing his friend, Stephen Rauhihi, in Foxton earlier that year.

Rauhihi had just driven home from rugby training when Lamb jumped in the car and punched his friend in the face. He told Rauhihi not to call police, and that he needed to get out of town.

Rauhihi drove for a time before pulling over, jumping out of the car and running off.

Lamb got in the driver’s seat and took off.

Despite giving evidence in his defence, Lamb was convicted and given a three-year prison term for robbery and other unrelated offending. The robbery conviction, however, has now been replaced by one for car conversion after a successful appeal to the Court of Appeal this month.

According to the judgment, delivered by Justice Christine French, Lamb argued Rauhihi gave him permission to take the car by running off.

The judge said the jury had to be sure Lamb not only took the car, but intended to permanently deprive Rauhihi of it, to convict him of robbery.

But in Lamb’s case, there was enough evidence to show two possibilities: Lamb intended to borrow the car, or he wanted to take it for good.

‘‘Where two inferences are equally available, to choose one in preference to the other is to guess and a jury must not guess,’’ the judge said.

Although that meant Lamb’s conviction was quashed, it was not the end of the story.

His lawyer accepted he had to be guilty of car conversion – temporarily taking the car without permission.

No retrial was ordered, as Lamb had already served a significant chunk of his prison term, the judge said.

However, he did need to be resentenced on all the charges.

Lamb had six months’ jail shaved off his three-year sentence for the lesser car conversion offence, and also had a first strike warning for violent offenders – given for the robbery – wiped.