Youth tells of beatings

Press, 6 May 1983, Page 23

Youth tells of beatings

PA Auckland A youth has described how he was forced to hold a cigarette in his mouth while a brother he is accused of killing shot at it with a slug gun. The youth, Steven John Forsythe, aged 18, of Manurewa, was giving evidence before the High Court at Auckland, during a trial in which he is accused of the murder of his brother, Tony Graham Forsythe, on July 7. Steven Forsythe has denied the charge. Dennis Phillip Oxley, aged 19, of Manurewa, had a charge of murder against him dismissed yesterday after an application by defence counsel, Mr I. D. Tucker.

Oxley now faces an alternative charge of being an accessory after the fact of murder by helping to dispose of the body. He has denied the charge. Steven Forsythe said in evidence that his brother, Tony, had often given him beatings. Once he had almost lost his eyesight after his brother punched him in

the face through an arc welding mask. Glass had had to be removed from his nose and the wound stitched.

Steven Forsythe described how Tony Forsythe had forced him to stand with a cigarette in his mouth while the latter shot at it with a slug gun. Tony Forsythe, he said, had threatened to shoot him if he refused to comply. His brother had forced him to suffer electric shocks while standing in a puddle of water and attached to an electric fence output box.

Steven Forsythe said his brother had also beaten him when he refused to take cars and commit a burglary for him. He said that early on the day of the alleged murder his brother had forced him to take a drug, described as “acid.”

He said he recalled picking up the rifle later, as if in a dream, and going to a bedroom where his brother was sleeping. The rifle, he said, had bumped against the door and gone off.