Mixed verdicts over Mob slaying

The longest jury trial ever held in Palmerston North has been unable to fully resolve the case against five men accused of murdering Codi Wilkinson.

The jury delivered amixed bag of verdicts in the High Court at Palmerston North at 5.40pm yesterday, having deliberated since 3.10pm on Monday.

No one was found guilty of murdering Wilkinson, whose body was found in Bunnythorpe in September 2019 two weeks after he went missing.

Jeremiah Su’a, the president of Mongrel Mob Aotearoa’s Manawatu¯ chapter, and fellow Mob members Quentin Joseph Moananui and Mairota Su’a were found not guilty of Wilkinson’s murder but guilty of his manslaughter.

They were also found guilty of participating in an organised criminal group and wounding Wilkinson’s friend Kyle Rowe with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The jury also found Moananui guilty of kidnapping Wilkinson and Rowe by taking them from Ashhurst to Wilkinson the night they were attacked.

But the jury were hung on all charges against Dean Arthur Jennings and Jason David Signal, as well as the kidnapping charges against the Su’a brothers.

Majority verdicts were required for all the guilty verdicts.

Justice Helen Cull ordered a retrial on the hung charges.

The Crown said the defendants plotted to violently assault Rowe and Wilkinson with weapons while kicking them out of the Mongrel Mob.

The plan was made because Rowe and Wilkinson robbed a drug dealer without permission from Jeremiah Su’a, the Aotearoa Mongel Mob Manawatu¯ chapter president, failed to share proceeds and lied about it to their president, the Crown said.

There was no argument Rowe and Wilkinson were attacked and ended up in Bunnythorpe in September 2019.

Rowe was taken from there to Palmerston North Hospital to be treated for a large wound to his head, while Wilkinson’s body was found two weeks later in a garden.

A post-mortem found he had been attacked with a machete or similar object.

Rowe gave evidence at trial, but said he could not remember much about the night.

Krystal Hewitt told the trial she saw Jennings, Moananui, Signal and Jeremiah Su’a on or near her Ashhurst home at or near the time Wilkinson and Rowe were attacked.

Wilkinson’s bloody handprint was found inside a boot of a car the Crown said was used to take him from Ashhurst to Bunnythorpe.

His partner Shaneque Terry said the defendants all went to her house afterwards, Jennings wearing Rowe’s gang patch, to eat pizza.

The Crown could not prove who inflicted the blows, so charged the defendants as parties to the crimes.

That meant the Crown had to prove there was a plan to inflict serious violence on Wilkinson and Rowe with weapons before taking them to Bunnythorpe.

They then had to prove no one went rogue from the plan when harming Wilkinson and Rowe.

The manslaughter verdicts mean for the Su’a brothers and Moananui there was no intent to kill Wilkinson or actions carried out with the knowledge that death was a probable outcome.

The trial, which started on February 11, was the longest ever held in Palmerston North.

Multiple lawyers spoken to by Stuff said the jury’s deliberations were also the longest ever held in the city’s courthouse.

Two jurors cried when the judge thanked them for their service on what was supposed to be a sevenweek trial.

‘‘We started in summer, and now it is winter, and you have weathered all the storms.’’

Jurors expressed relief en masse when the judge exempted them from any future jury service.

The longest ever jury trial held in New Zealand was the six-month trial in 2001 of a family who committed 85 smash-and-grab robberies across Auckland.

Reports from the time stated it took the jury more than 30 minutes to deliver the verdicts to 261 charges.