Behaviour unusual: witness

A witness who saw two boys, one with a ‘‘cherubic face,’’ loitering outside a West Auckland dairy shortly before its owner was stabbed to death has told the High Court at Auckland they seemed ‘‘hyped-up’’.

The witness, a man who worked in the area, described buying a newspaper from the Railside Ave dairy shortly after 7am on June 10, and described seeing a ‘‘tall, larger guy in a grey hoodie’’ who was ‘‘intentionally’’ talking to a younger kid outside the shop.

‘‘The younger person looked quite hyped, he was going up and down on the balls of his feet. It looked like the elder guy was trying to hype him up or something.’’

After leaving the dairy he said the younger of the pair stared straight at him until the witness broke the gaze, and he left thinking their behaviour was unusual. That’s what triggered me going to the police.

‘‘I do remember thinking that their behaviour outside the dairy was unusual but I didn’t think too much more about it because nothing had happened,’’ he said.

He estimated the pair’s ages at being between 12 and 14 but didn’t believe they could be much younger than that and said the younger of the two had a ‘‘cherubic face’’.

Following cross-examination by defence lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade, the witness agreed it was a wet, cold winter’s day and the boy might have been moving up and down because he was cold.

‘‘The fact is, you don’t know what was going on, you can only tell us what you saw,’’ Kincade said.

The defendants, aged 13 and 14, are on trial at the High Court in Auckland, accused of the death of Arun Kumar following an attack at Kumar’s Henderson dairy last year.

The 13-year-old is charged with manslaughter and assault with intent to rob, and the 14-year-old is charged with murder and assault with intent to rob. They have both pleaded not guilty.

An emotional Anita Kumar, the wife of the deceased, took to the witness box to give her version of events.