Manslaughter verdict reached

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 9

Manslaughter verdict reached

PA New Plymouth

Koroneihana Brandt, aged 20, has been found not guilty of murder by a High Court jury at New Plymouth but guilty of the manslaughter of Gregory Brian Burkett in a stabbing incident at a party last October. The jury took about five hours to reach its verdict. Mr Justice Casey remanded Brandt in custody to March 7 for a report and sentence. Brandt, of New Plymouth, had denied a charge of the murder of Mr Burkett by stabbing him at a party at the New Plymouth War Memorial Hall. His Honour, in his summing-up, said the defence case was that Brandt had not meant to kill, and had not turned his mind to

the likely consequences of his actions. He said intoxication did not excuse a person from criminal responsibility. Brandt had obviously been drinking, as had most of the people concerned with the episode. He said that defence counsel, Mr M. A. Bungay, had put it to the jury that Brandt was being beaten up. “You have to ask yourselves, ‘Did he really think the danger to himself was so bad it warranted the use of a knife in this way’?” said his Honour. He said that the defence of provocation did not work to exonerate a person completely — only to reduce a verdict of guilty of murder to one of guilty of manslaughter.