Who was in the bedroom?

One of the women accused of Jack McAllister’s murder did not travel to the scene of his fatal stabbing, a court has heard.

Natasha Ruffell provided a car to a group of six people who drove to Stadium Southland to confront McAllister on the night of June 7, 2017, a 17-year-old woman told the High Court at Invercargill yesterday. Her name has been suppressed.

She said Ruffell was in and out of a bedroom at an Ettrick St property where Brayden Whiting-Roff, the principal assailant, brandished what Ruffell’s lawyer, Sonia Vidal, called a ‘‘Bear Grylls’’ survival knife before the attack.

Whiting-Roff and the 17-yearold have already pleaded guilty to the 19-year-old’s murder. Five others – Ruffell, Christopher Brown, David Wilson, Laura Scheepers, and a 24-year-old woman with name suppression – have been charged with the same.

None of the defendants are accused of physically causing McAllister’s death, but are alleged to have arranged, encouraged or otherwise been party to his murder.

CCTV footage produced in court shows Ruffell’s car arriving at Ettrick St just after 10pm on the night of the murder, about 40 minutes after the 17-year-old, defendant Christopher Brown, and another man, Phillip O’Brien, arrived. The 17-year-old sent a text message to Ruffell from the house, which said Whiting Roff ‘‘wants you back idk [I don’t know] why but yeah’’.

She told the court she did not recall the exact times at which Ruffell was in the room where Whiting-Roff brandished the knife later used to kill McAllister.

‘‘I can just say she was to and fro from the room.’’

In a recorded interview on April 6 this year, she said: ‘‘Natasha said we could use her car to take to the stadium so long as she had it back so she could see her boyfriend,’’ the court heard.

The court heard the woman changed her account of how many people entered the bedroom at Ettrick St.

She said four of the accused – Ruffell, Brown, Wilson, and the 24-year-old – were among a group of as many as nine people who were in the room at some point.

The fifth defendant, Laura Scheepers, was not present, the court heard.

Yesterday morning, the woman added two men, Phillip O’Brien and Cullam Swinburne, to the total count. ‘‘You’ve got two more in that room since yesterday,’’ Bill Dawkins, who is representing Wilson, said.

‘‘I didn’t think it was relevant,’’ the woman replied.