Fate of five rests with jury
The jury has retired to consider its verdicts for five people charged with the murder of Jack McAllister in Invercargill.
The jury went out at 1pm yesterday, after Justice Rachel Dunningham took nearly three hours to sum up the case and direct the jury on matters of law.
Although the charge is murder, if the jury finds not guilty, it must then consider manslaughter.
Justice Dunningham said manslaughter was what was called an included charge.
‘‘Where a defendant is charged as a party to murder, but is not proven to have assisted the principal offender to commit a murder, or recognise that murder was a probable consequence, they could nevertheless be guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter.’’
Christopher Brown, 20, Natasha Ruffell, 27, Laura Scheepers, 19, David Wilson, 20, and a 24-year-old with name suppression have been on trial in the High Court at Invercargill for the past five weeks.
Two others, including Brayden Whiting-Roff who stabbed 19-year-old McAllister near the ILT Stadium Southland on June 7 last year, have already pleaded guilty to murder.
None of the five defendants are accused of physically causing McAllister’s death, but they are alleged to have arranged, encouraged or otherwise been a party to the stabbing near the stadium.
Dunningham told jurors she expected them to take ‘‘days’’ to reach their verdicts, not hours.
‘‘You have five defendants to consider.’’
At the beginning of her address, she said the jurors had been passengers on a five-week journey into the lives of five young people and into the events on June 7, 2017.
She would hand over the keys and put the jurors in the driver’s seat, and she would show them the options they had and how to navigate them.
But she would not tell them what their destination would be.
‘‘That is entirely your decision.’’
Evidence given during the trial included what people had said on the witness stand, exhibits, police video interviews, CCTV footage at the scene, texts and Facebook messages and physical evidence such as knives.
She asked the jury to take its knowledge and life experience to the table when considering its verdicts.
The case against each defendant was different and relied on a different package of evidence, she said.
The judge gave the jury a ‘‘question trail’’ to answer when considering its verdicts for each defendant, and she summed up the Crown and defence cases.
‘You have five defendants to consider.’’ Justice Rachel Dunningham told jurors she expected them to take ‘‘days’’ to reach their verdicts, not hours.