Partner’s tearful evidence
Wiona Lawson desperately tried to flag down help as her fiance lay dying on the side of the road.
Lawson delivered emotional testimony in the High Court in Christchurch yesterday where Alistair Cochrane, 26, and Daniel French, 36, are standing trial for the murder of her partner, Luke Sears. The Crown alleges the death was the result of conflict over an alleged drug debt. Cochrane and French both deny murdering Sears.
A third accused, Tereina Delia Sullivan, is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, five charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Lawson testified via audiovisual link about the events leading up to 28-year-old Sears’ death on October 13, 2018. The jury was shown a video of an interview Lawson did with police a few days after Sears died.
It showed Lawson in tears as she spoke about the conflict that led to Sears being shot.
Lawson said Sears told her that French owed him wages after he did some work for him. Lawson did not know French, but had heard Sears referring to him as ‘‘Dan’’ or ‘‘Frenchie’’. She went with Sears to French’s house at Charing Cross in Selwyn, to collect the money, but French was not home. They started heading home and passed French and Cochrane on Grange Rd. French and Sears got out of their vehicles and talked on the side of the road.
Lawson said she could not hear what the two men were saying, but realised they were fighting when she heard punches being thrown. She jumped out of the car and yelled at the two men to stop.
She said she then noticed another man – Cochrane – on the opposite side of the road pointing what looked like a black shotgun at Sears.
Sears held up
his arms and
Wiona Lawson partner of Luke Sears
walked towards Cochrane asking him what he was going to do with the gun. Lawson said she asked Cochrane to put the gun away, but Sears pushed her out of the way and told her to get back in the car.
When Cochrane said he was going to leave, Sears moved forward saying they ‘‘were not going anywhere’’. She heard a ‘‘loud bang’’ soon after and saw Sears staggering towards her clutching his chest. Cochrane and French jumped in their vehicle and drove away.
‘‘I was screaming and just kneeling with him. I was so scared,’’ she said. She could not get Sears in the car to drive him to hospital, so called 111. ‘‘I waited with him. He was not saying anything, he was trying to breathe.’’
Lawson said she managed to flag down a passing motorist who called an ambulance and police. More motorists stopped and tried to help. A woman told Lawson to give Sears mouth-to-mouth while she gave him chest compressions.
‘‘We did that for about 15 minutes. Someone got scissors so we could cut his shirt off and try to stop the blood. There was so much of it.
‘‘I told someone to grab clothes from the boot to help stop the blood. I just stayed there with him and continued to give him mouthto-mouth until the woman said he was gone.’’
During cross-examination, Cochrane’s defence counsel, Kerry Cook, asked Lawson if she knew much about the activities of the King Cobra gang, which Sears was a part of. Lawson said apart from attending ‘‘family days’’ with Sears, she knew nothing about the gang’s activities.
‘‘I’ve seen Luke wear his patch and how proud he was, but I did not hang around [with the gang] and I was not in the gang,’’ she said.
Defence counsel for French, Doug Taffs, asked Lawson: ‘‘Are you aware the King Cobras gang is notorious for their criminal behaviour?’’ She said she had ‘‘no idea’’ and denied knowing how a gang member earned his patch.
The jury trial is before Justice David Gendall and has been set down for three weeks.
‘‘I just stayed there with him and continued to give him mouth-to-mouth until the woman said he was gone.’’
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