Accused thought girl ‘not badly hurt’

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 4

Accused thought girl ‘not badly hurt’

PA Auckland The man accused of the murder of Jacqueline Hazel Blunden has told a High Court jury at Auckland that he believed the girl was not seriously hurt when he left her lying on a Takapuna Street verge. Walter Thomas Mainwaring, aged 20. took the stand on the seventh day of the trial in which he has denied the murder charge. He told the jury he delivered repeated blows to the head of the deceased with her shoe during an argument in the early hours of Saturday, August 23.

The last blow produced the sound of wood hitting bone, he said. “She stopped abusing me and became silent.”

“I thought she was unconscious but I did not think she was seriously hurt,” he said. “I thought she would get up in three or four minutes and carry on, or someone passing would see her.” The court had heard earlier that Miss Blunden, aged 16, was found at dawn lying with her head in a pool of blood. She died in Auckland Hospital six days later of brain damage caused by a depressed skull fracure above the right ear. Mainwaring, a naval rating at the time, told the court that before he ran from the scene he put the girl into a “recovery position.” > -»?

“It sounded like,’She' was choking on her ’ vomit so I put her on her left side with her left arm behind her and her right arm raised so her head could rest on it,” he said.

Mainwaring said he first met the girl he later learned was Miss Blunden in Lake Road, Takapuna, as he

walked away from Kicks nightclub. He said his ship. H.M.N.Z.S. Taranaki, had berthed the previous daj' and he had spent the night drinking heavily with Navy companions at his Devonport flat and later at the nightclub. Miss Blunden was also at the club, but Mainwaring told his counsel,. Mr S. G. Lockhart, he had not noticed her there.

When he met her walking towards him in Lake Road, he said, “She was obviously drunk, crying and talking to herself as though abusing someone.”

“I asked her what was wrong, where she was going and how she was getting home,” he said.

When they parted Mainwaring raced around the block, to intercept the girl again in Anzac Street. “I invited her back to my flat,” he said. She abused him.

“I told her my nickname. Mouse, which all my friends and naval colleagues call me. She just laughed,” he said. It did not worry him. “Everyone has that reaction.”

He said he repeated the invitation to his flat as the girl attempted to hitch-hike in the direction of her home, in Northcote. He also offered repeatedly to get her a taxi. ; “Virtually without warning she struck me with her.jiandbag,” he told the court. “I punched her with my fist. It was not hard, but because of her condition (drunk) she fell on the road.”

“She came at me with her shoe,” he said. “I wrestled the shoe from her and hit her with it a couple of times. She kept on calling me a bastard. That’s when I hit her a couple more times.”

He said he then pulled her \ struggling off the road, on to the grass verge beside a parked car where he hit her with the shoe four more times until she fell silent. He took both her shoes and . her handbag to hide his fingerprints, he said, and hid ' ? the items in nearby streets. When he awoke in his flat later that morning he heard radio reports of a girl badly injured in a suspected hit-and-run in Takapuna, but he did not relate it to the incident he was involved in, he said. He admitted to Mr S. B. W. Grieve, for the Crown, that he found blood on corduroy trousers he had been wearing and threw them out partly for that reason. Later that Saturday he played soccer for the New Zealand Navy team against the Police at the Devonport base. Mainwaring told the court he signed on with the Navy for 20 years within 12 months of leaving Fraser High School, Hamilton, with four School Certificate passes. . i He intended to make it a career and had hoped even-■ tually to become a commis-1 sioned officer, he said. | His divisional officer on H.M.N.Z.S. Taranaki, -Lieu- j , tenant J. O. Ladd, told the 1 court Mainwaring was “very : intelligent” and had made excellent progress during his short career. i . He had gained an .accel- .’. erated promotion achieved by only 5 per cent of ratings. , j Had he continued with the same progress he could have become a commander or i higher. “He had a lot ofpotential indeed,” said Lieutenant Ladd.. The trial is before Mr Justice Thorp.