Pair guilty of gangland murder

Two Canterbury men have been found guilty of the gruesome gangland murder of Bradley Alan Lomax in the Waimakariri riverbed in September

2017.

A jury returned guilty verdicts against Kasha William Gosset, 37, of Oxford, and Cody Derek Martin, a

31-year-old drainlayer from Mairehau, on the 12th day of the murder trial in the High Court at Christchurch.

The defendants were brought into the court room one at a time when the jury delivered its verdicts. Gosset raised his arms in what appeared to be a gang salute as he was led back to the cells.

Justice Cameron the pair in sentencing on May 16.

The trial was told Lomax was shot in the leg with a shotgun, then shot in the head with several rounds from a cut-down .22 rifle, before another shotgun blast hit him in the upper arm and chest. He was then killed with shotgun blasts to both eyes.

Both men denied the joint murder charge and blamed each other for the fatal shots. They both claimed they had no plan and did not know the other one was going to kill Lomax.

The Crown accepted it could not prove who fired the fatal shots but it said they could both be found guilty as parties to the murder.

Detective Inspector Greg Murton, who led the investigation, said Lomax’s death was ‘‘as brutal as any killing you will see’’.

‘‘It was cruel. Our scenario is that he was shot in the knees to stop him doing anything and executed from that point.’’ Mander custody remanded for