Courtroom commotion after man found guilty
The man who shot four Armed Offenders Squad members in a house near Kawerau last year had to be manhandled out of a High Court courtroom, yelling and shouting, after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him.
Rhys Richard Ngahiwi Warren, 28, had been on trial in the High Court at Hamilton for the past three weeks on two charges of attempted murder, three of using a firearm against a law enforcement officer and one of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The Crown alleged the four officers – Constable Regan Mauheni, Constable Damian White, Constable Andrew Flinn and Sergeant Logan Marsh – were shot by Warren on March 9, 2016, during the siege on Onepu Springs Road, about 5 kilometres from Kawerau.
Mauheni, White and Flinn were injured inside the house during the gunfight, while Marsh was hurt while he was stationed outside the house afterward.
The squad members were at the home because shots had allegedly been fired at or near police and a police spotter plane during a cannabis clearance operation earlier in the day.
Warren was arrested following a 22-hour siege of the property.
‘‘Can I say something before you unlawfully detain me?’’ Warren shouted after the verdicts were delivered.
Justice Timothy Brewer would not hear of it and Corrections officers had to grapple with a barely controllable Warren as he was led down to the courthouse cells, bellowing and swearing.
He could still be heard loudly voicing his displeasure minutes later.
During the trial, Warren had defended himself on the basis that he feared for his life and the bullets he shot at police were in self-defence.
However, the jury of seven women and four men deemed that it was he who was the aggressor, and the shot he took at White – the foremost officer in the hallway of the home – constituted an act of attempted murder.
So, too, did a shot he fired shortly after from a police-issue Glock pistol at Marsh, who was taking cover in a pit near the rear of the house.
Both officers were lucky not to have been killed or badly injured. The bullet fired at White’s head hit the scope of his M4 rifle, which was right in front of his face, and shattered.
The bullet fired at Marsh struck and ended up lodged in the ammunition magazine of his rifle.
The jury had retired to consider their verdicts shortly after 3.30pm on Thursday, following Justice Timothy Brewer’s summing up.
The jury returned at 11.30pm to ask whether it was possible to have majority verdicts on three of the charges, on which they were not fully agreed.
Justice Brewer told them he could not accept a majority verdict until four hours of deliberation had passed.
He sent them back to the jury room and urged them to do their best to reach unanimity.
In reaching majority guilty verdicts on the two attempted murder charges, the jury did not need to consider two of the firearms charges, which were alternates to those charges.
Warren will be sentenced on May 26 in the High Court at Tauranga.
Speaking after the verdicts, Warren’s friend Jesse Church, who acted as a ‘‘Mackenzie friend’’ adviser to him throughout the trial, declared the court process invalid.
‘‘Tikanga Maori is the true law ...’’