Gruesome ring theft alleged by Crown

Blood was used as lubricant to get two silver swastika rings off a man’s fingers in a robbery, the Crown said at the start of a Christchurch District Court trial.

Prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore said scissors were used to cut the webbing between two of the victim’s fingers in the incident at city council flats in Avonside in 2012.

‘‘Blood provided the lubrication and allowed the rings to be pulled off,’’ Elsmore said in her opening address to the jury in the three-day trial before Judge Stephen O’Driscoll.

Benjamin William Hita, 58, and Martin Henry Reuben, 52, deny charges of aggravated robbery.

Elsmore said the victim had lived in the housing complex for 20 years. A few months before, a man named ‘‘Banjo’’ had moved into another unit. Banjo asked if the victim would sell the two sterling-silver rings with swastikas on them, which he was wearing. The victim was fond of the rings and was not prepared to sell.

On the evening of August 28, 2012, the victim and a woman went about 100 metres to Banjo’s unit, where several people were present.

The man would allege that Banjo – the Crown says that was Hita – grabbed the victim and told him to take his rings off. When he refused, Banjo punched him in the head and told a Maori man with full facial tattoos to get a knife from the kitchen.

That man came back with scissors which he used to cut the webbing between the man’s fingers and that provided the blood which was lubricant to get the rings off. Banjo kept holding him and punched him five or six times.

When the rings were off, the woman he had gone there with took him outside and helped him back to his own flat.

Police arrested Hita and two days later the alleged victim remembered details for the tattooed man and Reuben was arrested.

The Crown will call evidence from seven witnesses.

Counsel for Hita, Tony Greig, asked the jury to weigh up the reliability and credibility of the alleged victim.

Hita would say he barely knew the man, and he had never been known as Banjo.

For Reuben, Michelle Barrell said although her client did have a full facial tattoo she asked the jury to keep in mind that ‘‘the way he appears is not necessarily the end of the matter’’.

‘‘I appeal to you to look at all the evidence in this case before judging him on the way he appears,’’ she said.

The trial is continuing.