Self-defence only option – accused

‘‘I thought – this is happening. I have no option here.’’

Those were the words of Nathan Graeme Hall after a fight that ended the life of Chanel Henwood, also known as Chanel Lee Simmonds.

At a manslaughter trial in the High Court at Invercargill yesterday, Justice David Gendall and a jury were shown a videotaped police interview in which Hall, speaking with a shaking voice, described a fight with a drunk, belligerent stranger.

It happened barely 30 seconds after they had encountered each other at a birthday party at the city’s Marist Rugby Clubrooms on February 10, last year.

In the interview, Hall said his partner Serina Pollard had talked to Henwood about how he should not have been smoking inside.

The court was told Henwood then abused her, but Pollard, giving evidence earlier in the week, said she never heard any derogative remarks about her by Henwood.

Hall said he approached Henwood, trying defuse things.

But it was when he added ‘‘that’s my partner you’ve been talking to’’ that Henwood, whose hackles were already up, ‘‘just switched’’, the court was told. ‘‘He was just ‘Right, let’s go, right now, come on . . . ’,’’ he said.

Henwood had put his beer down and come at him. ‘‘I barely had time to put mine down . . . and we were in a tussle.’’

‘‘I thought – this is happening. I have no option here. There wasn’t any time to bail out or anything ... I was going to get smashed over if I didn’t help myself out.’’

He remembered Henwood hitting him and one of his own punches hitting Henwood in the face, and him stumbling backwards: ‘‘I thought he was just a bit dazed.’’ Crown lawyer Rikki Donnelly, in his closings, said it was not the Crown’s case to suggest Hall was an inherently dangerous man who had been looking for a fight that evening at the birthday party. However, he had accepted a challenge from Henwood to fight, Donnelly said.

Hall placed his beer down and advanced on an intoxicated man and punches were thrown. He responded to a challenge, it was not self-defence, Donnelly said.

However, defence lawyer Roger Eagles said it was a classic case of self-defence. The aggressor had been Henwood and Hall responded by defending himself, Eagles said.

An autopsy found Henwood had a tear in a major artery in the brain, resulting in sudden blood loss to the brain stem.

The defence did not call any witnesses.

Justice Gendall will sum up this morning.

‘I thought – this is happening. I have no option here.’ Nathan Hall