Another witness declared hostile as Crown case draws to close

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 12

Another witness declared hostile as Crown case draws to close

Another witness was declared hostile yesterday in the murder trial being held in the High Court before Mr Justice Williamson.

Mr Brent Stanaway, the senior Crown counsel, was given permission to crossexamine his own witness, Gary George Pakeha, unemployed, the brother-in-law of Llewellyn Robert Beard, who has pleaded guilty to murder and has been sentenced to life im-' prisonment. His co-accused, Wayne Pohutuhutu, aged 22, unemployed, has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering Michael James Dowling, aged 28, on March 6. The Crown case is expected to finish today.

Messrs Stanaway and Mark Zarifeh appear for the Crown, and Mrs Judith Ablett-Kerr and Mr Diccon Sim, both of Dunedin, for Pohutuhutu. Part way through his evidence, Mr Stanaway was authorised to crossexamine Mr Pakeha because of discrepancies be-

tween his evidence yesterday and his evidence at the preliminary hearing in the District Court in June, and his statements to the police after Mr Dowling’s death. The discrepencies mainly related to Mr Pakeha’s earlier statement that after Beard had asked Mr Pakeha for the keys of his car, at the party in Skipton Street, Beard had driven away and Pohutuhutu was a passenger; and that they both returned in the car some 23 minutes later.

In evidence yesterday, Mr Pakeha said Beard had driven the car and nobody else was in it, and he did not see Pohutuhutu at that time. At the end of his evi-

dence and cross-examina-tion, Mr Pakeha was asked by his Honour to tell him and jurors whyhe had said at the preliminary hearing, and in statements to the police that he had seen Pohutuhutu in the car with Beard, as they drove away from the party, and

later returned. Mr Pakeha replied: “I don’t know. Just said it.” To a further question, he said the only time he saw Pohutuhutu in his (witness’s) car was when he drove Pohutuhutu and two others from the Shirley Lodge Hotel to the party in Skipton Street earlier in the evening. During his evidence to, or cross-examination by Mr Stanaway, Mr Pakeha said he did not notice when Mr Dowling left the party, or when Beard and Pohutuhutu left.

> He saw Beard and Pohutuhutu again later, and Beard asked for his car keys. At that stage, he did not know where Pohutuhutu was.

Nobody else was in the car when Beard drove away, or when he returned just over 20 minutes later. He did not see Pohutuhutu. Mr Pakeha was crossexamined at length by Mr Stanaway about his evidence at the preliminary hearing and his state-

ments to the police. Mr Pakeha said his earlier evidence that Pohutuhutu had stated after their return that he had cut his finger was wrong. He said Pohutuhutu had said this earlier in the evening at the hotel. He had seen a cut on Pohutuhutu’s knuckle and blood was “dribbling down.” Pohutuhutu had said during the evening that he had bled in the rear seat of the car. Mr Pakeha said he saw blood in the back of his car the next day and made some effort to clean it up. Some of the blood was smeared. Mr Pakeha agreed he had made three statements to the police, and in none of them had he said Pohutuhutu was not there. Mr Pakeha said he had been under pressure at the time he made the statements to the police and gave evidence at the preliminary hearing. The pressure related to his

“kids and missus.” That pressure was no longer on him. He said Pohutuhutu had not gone with Beard, after Beard had been given the keys to the car. To Mrs Ablett-Kerr, Mr Pakeha said he had lent the car to his cousin on the Friday, March 6. He had not cleaned it before his cousin took it; he cleaned it the next day, Saturday. Asked about his comments that he thought he might be up to his neck in it, he said he thought he might be blamed for Mr Dowling’s death. Mrs Ablett-Kerr: Did you think because Beard used your car to take Mr Dowling’s body from McFarlane Park to Grimsey’s Road, that they might well think you were involved? Witness: Yeah, that’s what they could have thought. He agreed that when he made the statements to the police, he was concerned with keeping himself out of any involvement.