Teenager beaten with own shoe — trial

Press, 7 May 1981, Page 8

Teenager beaten with own shoe — trial

PA Auckland Young companions of Jacqueline Hazel Blunden have told a murder trial at Auckland that she was angry and upset when they parted just hours before she was fatally clubbed in a Takapuna street. The teen-age shop assistant was beaten with her own shoe by an angry naval rating who was reckless as to whether he caused her death or not, it was alleged on the opening day of the High Court trial. Walter Thomas Mainwaring, aged 20, of Devonport, has denied murdering Miss Blunden, aged 16, in Anzac Street, Takapuna, in the early hours of a Saturday morning last August. Mr S. B. W. Grieve, for the Crown, told the jury, “You will have no difficulty concluding that the accused killed Jacqueline Blunden.” The important question, he said, was whether Mainwaring knew the injuries he caused were likely to cause death and was reckless as to whether they did or not. The trial before Mr Justice Thorp is expected to continue into next week. Mainwaring is represented by Mr S. G. Lockhart and Mr R. Moss, Mr P. E. Dacre is assiting Mr Grieve. The fatal assault occurred shortly after Miss Blunden left the Kicks night club in Takapuna sometime between 2 a.m. and 2.30 a.m. on August 23, Mr Grieve told the Court. Until three hours before she had been with three friends at the Glenfield Tavern. Kathryn Janette Nuttall, of Northcote, said the deceased

had been drunk when they left the tavern at. closing time- : ;? They had been drinking whisky and ginger ale. “but I think Jackie was drinking doubles,” the witness said under cross-examination by Mr Lockhart. Outside the tavern they decided to go to a party. The deceased approached a man unknown to them and asked him to take them to the party, Miss Nuttall said. He agreed but on the journey the only member of the group who knew where the party was, James William Milne, decided he did not want to go, the witness said. Milne and the deceased had an agrument in the van, she said, and the deceased walked off towards WairauRoad.

Miss Nuttall said she, along with the fourth member of the group, Gavin Christensen, and the van driver, Joseph Hubert Nellisen, went after Miss Blunden pleading with her to come back to the van. Mr Nellisen told the Court that once on Wairau Road, Miss Blunden started to hitchhike towards Takapuna and the others went home without her. Mr Grieve said the deceased went to Kicks night club where Mainwaring had also gone with friends that Friday evening. Mainwaring left shortly after her, he said. They met walking in opposite directions in Anzac Street. The defendant spoke to the girl but was rebuffed. He then doubled around the Shore City block to again intercept Miss Blunden as she walked down Anzac Street towards Barrys Point Road. She rebuffed him again, “in strong language,” Mr Grieve told the jury. “He persisted in his efforts to talk to her and followed her, talking or arguing, until they came alongside a Holden station wagon parked partly on the grass verge in Anzac Street.

“It is not clear who struck the first blow,” Mr Grieva said. During the exchange Mainwaring seized her shoe and stuck the fatal blows t» her head causing the injuries from which she died six days later, he alleged. In a statement allegedly given to the police and read to the Court by Mr Grieve. Mainwaring said that when first rebuffed he was “shocked at her language. 1 * However, he went round the block to meet her again because, “She gave me the feeling she was free and easy and I might be able to get to know her and take it from there.” He asked repeatedly if he could get her a taxi, accord- 1 ing to the statement, but she refused in abusive terms and ■ tried to hitchhike along An-1 zac Street. . | The defendant allegedly ‘ told the police she first hit ‘ him with her handbag. He is said to have responded by; knocking her to the ground! twice. She began to hit him: about the legs with her shoo! as sha sat on the road, Mr Grieve said. Mainwaring is alleged to have told the police later, “I grabbed the shoe and hit her with it no more than four times. She was still raving and drunk, lying on the road. “I dragged her off the road and onto the grass. I hit her four more times with the shoe. I was angry.” According to the statement, he said, “I was holding the shoe by the toe. Ope blow caused a cracking sound. She stopped talking. i “That is when I hit the panic button. I did not notice people or cars. I was running blind.” I Mr Grieve said the defend-1 ant “took deliberate steps ta avoid detection,” by running off with the weapon, the other shoe and the girl’s handbag which had his I fingerprints on it. At his Cautley Road flab; he washed the shirt he had been wearing, to reurn it to a, friend, and disposed of his trousers in the rubbish.