Church before stabbing
A girl who allegedly fatally stabbed a man during a confrontation that followed a car break-in spree had attended church activities earlier in the evening, a jury has been told.
A 16-year-old and a 14-year-old are standing trial in the High Court in Hamilton, accused of murdering Norman Kingi, 54, who died following the incident in Ra¯ nui Street in Dinsdale, Hamilton, about 11.30pm on Friday, July 28 last year.
The Crown case against the pair alleges they were the elder two of three girls – at the time aged 15, 13 and 12 – who were caught in the act of breaking into a Nissan Primera owned by Kingi and his partner Vicki-Lee Reihana, which was parked on the roadside outside their house.
The couple apprehended the youngest girl, while two others ran off – only to return soon after armed with a knife and a screwdriver respectively. There was a confrontation and it is alleged the oldest girl, who had the knife, stabbed Kingi in the heart, fatally injuring him. On the second day of the trial on Tuesday the court heard evidence from a youth pastor at a Hamilton church.
The pastor and the church cannot be named without leading to the identification of the defendants. He confirmed the 15-year-old and the 12-year-old had attended group activities at that church earlier that evening, but the last he saw of them was about 8.30pm, about an hour before the activities wound up for the night.
The older girl had been attending the group for about two and a half years, he said. The day began with the ongoing crossexamination of Reihana by Ron Mansfield, the defence counsel for the 16-year-old, who sought to determine the precise detail of that confrontation.
‘‘It was certainly not a hard strike, it was a bit awkward,’’ he ventured.
‘‘It was aiming at his chest ... it was definitely aiming at the top part,’’ she replied.
Kingi had been yelling at the two girls: ‘‘F...ing little shits. Come on, you can’t steal our car.’’ The two parties had approached each other, yelling and swearing.
‘‘Jesus, I’ll f...ing do yous,’’ he had said.
‘‘I’ll do you,’’ the taller girl had replied. Reihana said she never saw Kingi raise his hand against the girls.
Mansfield asked: ‘‘It would be fair to describe him as absolutely nutting off?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Reihana replied.
Roger Laybourn, who is acting for the younger girl, also crossedexamined Reihana.
She confirmed that his client had been standing two metres behind the older girl, watching the events unfold.
‘‘You never heard a word out of her mouth. She was just there.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ Reihana replied. During his re-examination, Crown prosecutor Philip Morgan QC asked about the start of the the confrontation, which began with the older girl yelling at Kingi: ‘‘F... you, let her go, let her go.’’
‘‘We are not letting her go. We are ringing the police,’’ Kingi had yelled back.
The court also heard evidence from St John’s Ambulance officer Chae Mcgarva, who had been dispatched to the scene at 11.38pm.
‘‘It was obvious to you that he was dead or dying?’’ Morgan asked.
‘‘That he was dying, yes,’’ McGarva replied.
Another witness, Stewart MacKenzie, told the court he was driving along Ellicot Rd nearby, when he saw two girls running along the side of the road, looking behind them ‘‘as if they were trying to get away from something’’.
Suspecting they might have been car thieves and having had his own car broken into twice in recent times, he turned around and went looking for the pair, but did not see them again.
Turning into Ranui St, he then happened upon Kingi lying injured in the street, and Reihana who was attempting to tend to him.
The jury was shown CCTV footage taken by various cameras on Robyn Pl and Thompson Ave, showing three figures breaking into vehicles.
One of those vehicles was owned by another witness, who told the court that a fishing knife with a blade that folded into its handle had been taken from a fishing box in his car.
That knife was produced as an exhibit.
‘‘That belonged to me once upon a time,’’ he said.
Due to their young age, the two accused have interim name suppression until the conclusion of the trial, at which point a final decision will be made on whether they can be named.
The trial, before Justice Timothy Brewer, is estimated to run for two weeks.