Knife taken from ‘Farmer Brown’, court told in trial
A man who is on trial for murdering an Invercargill teenager had a knife taken off him earlier in the night, a witness says.
The man, who has name suppression, was giving evidence via a video link in the High Court in Invercargill yesterday.
Natasha Ruffell, Christopher Brown, Laura Scheepers and David Wilson, along with a 24-year-old woman who has name suppression, are on trial accused of murdering Jack McAllister on June 7, 2017.
The witness said he received a text from the 24-year-old woman on the night of June 7, wanting help because defendant Brown was having ‘‘a meltdown’’.
He arrived at an Ettrick St house where Brown, whom he called ‘‘Farmer Brown’’, was ‘‘angry’’ and ‘‘frustrated’’.
‘‘All I know was that he wanted to get Jack for doing something stupid . . . He wanted to stab him.’’
The witness said he told Brown to ‘‘cut it out’’ and that ‘‘if he doesn’t stop being an egg I’ll give him a smack’’.
During the visit, Brown was on the phone ‘‘amping up’’. He threw the phone at one point.
‘‘He got his phone and started talking again . . . Then I saw something in his hand that should not have been there.’’
He said he saw a ‘‘hunting style knife’’. There were children around so he took the knife, put it in his pocket and put it in a drawer, he said.
Brown and the witness later walked to Subway where they met others, including the 17-year-old who has already pleaded guilty to murder, and Scheepers.
‘‘[Brown] was talking about getting Jack and giving him a hiding.’’
The witness said he was getting bored and the pair left, going back to Ettrick St, then walked to a Conon St address.
‘‘Farmer kept saying he wanted to go and stab Jack.’’
The witness then went home.
Later that night, a friend told him McAllister was dead, he said.
‘‘I told my flatmate . . . out of curiosity we went to [Ettrick St].’’
The 24-year-old woman was crying and looked upset and stressed, he said.
She had blood on her and looked like she had come out of a ‘‘horror movie’’.
‘‘She said Jack’s dead . . . She said her and her partner tried to stop him [Brayden Whiting-Roff].’’
Under-cross examination Fiona Guy-Kidd, who is representing Brown, said the witness had it wrong and Brown had said he wanted to ‘‘smack’’ not ‘‘stab’’ McAllister. She added Brown had handed the knife over when asked.
Guy-Kidd also said Brown had never said, at the Conon St address, that he wanted to stab McAllister.
‘‘Could you be wrong Brown wanted to stab Jack?
‘‘I could be, who knows, it was a year ago, I can’t remember,’’ the witness said.
Under-cross examination, Hugo Young, counsel for the 24-year-old, said the witness was mistaken about who had blood on them. He produced a police statement from June 13 which stated the witness saw the 17-year-old with blood on her.
Another statement, taken in September, states he saw both women with blood on them.
The trial continues.