Murder co-accused called friend after fatal city stabbing

A friend and workmate of one of the women standing trial for murder warned her not to meet up with the victim prior to his death.

Natasha Ruffell, Christopher Brown, Laura Scheepers and David Wilson, along with a 24-year-old woman who has name suppression, are on trial for murdering Jack McAllister.

The teenager died after he was stabbed 14 times near ILT Stadium Southland on June 7, 2017.

Brayden Whiting-Roff, who has previously pleaded guilty to a charge of murdering McAllister, was the principal assailant who stabbed McAllister. A 17-year-old woman has also pleaded guilty to the same charge. None of the five on trial in the Invercargill High Court wielded the knife.

Bethaney Sharp was the first to give evidence yesterday.

Sharp told the court she and Scheepers, who worked together, had attended a work health and safety meeting about 5.30pm on the night of the attack.

After the meeting they got dinner at Dominos, a drink at Night and Day, then a cookie at Subway. Camera footage show the pair arriving at Subway at 8.08pm.

It was at Subway, Scheepers mentioned McAllister, saying Brown was looking for him because of a Facebook post, Sharp said.

Sharp told Crown prosecutor Riki Donnelly she tried to change the subject because she did not want to get involved.

Camera footage shows the pair were joined by the 17-year-old at 8.33pm.

‘‘She sat down and started talking . . . she started saying how they [Brown and his friends] were looking for Jack.’’

The three women were then joined by Brown and his friend (whose name is suppressed) at 8.48pm.

Scheepers had been messaging McAllister during the course of the evening, but he was not replying.

After leaving Subway, the girls walked back to Scheepers’ house on Lorne St, where Sharp was picked up by her mother at 10pm. Before leaving, she told Scheepers ‘‘not to get involved’’.

At midnight, Scheepers called her.

‘‘She was very flustered. She said she had gone to meet up with Jack and things went bad . . . that they had stabbed him . . . They stabbed him several times and then she said he was going to be fine . . . she kept repeating herself a lot. She was pretty distressed.’’

Fiona Guy-Kidd, counsel for Brown, suggested reference to her comments that Brown wanted to ‘‘beat’’ McAllister up were Sharp’s words.

She also questioned Sharp’s account of what happened that night and she had times ‘‘muddled’’.

Peter Redpath, counsel for Laura Scheepers, also raised questions over the timeline of events at Subway. He said camera footage showed the time Scheepers and Sharp had spent outside talking to Brown, his friend and the woman could have only been for a short time.

Witness William Birch, who went to primary and secondary school with McAllister, met up with Scheepers on the night of the stabbing.

Scheepers messaged him about 11.30pm that night saying ‘‘she needed a friend’’, he said. ‘‘She seemed a little bit panicked and skitterish and said she needed to keep her head low because people were after her. I asked her what was wrong but she would not tell me.’’

‘‘She was very flustered. She said she had gone to meet up with Jack and things went bad . . . that they had stabbed him.’’ Bethaney Sharp