Accessory refused leave to appeal

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 13

Accessory refused leave to appeal

PA Wellington Philip Raroa, aged 35, played a part in a gruesome sequel to two murders, the Court of Appeal said.

Raroa helped remove the bodies of two men from a scenic reserve where they had been shot to a wharf in Timaru Harbour where the bodies were placed in a fishing boat, taken beyond the harbour entrance and cast into the sea.

The Court refused leave to Raroa, a plasterer, to appeal against conviction and against a three-year jail sentence on four charges of being an accessory after the fact and against conviction and a three-month jail sentence, concurrent, for unlawfully getting upon a fishing boat.

The Court comprised Mr Justice Somers, Mr Justice Casey and Mr Justice Bisson.

Delivering the judgment, Mr Justice Bisson said that in the High Court at Timaru Raroa stood trial before a judge alone on an indictment including four counts which charged him with offences under section 176 of the Crimes Act.

The trial Judge, in an

oral judgment on June 29, gave his reasons for finding Raroa guilty on all the charges. He found that two men murdered Stephen James Hartley and Paul Chapman Wilson, one or other of them using a shotgun in circumstances which rendered the other guilty as a party. Raroa, in terms of section 71, helped them avoid arrest by taking part in removal of the bodies from the scenic reserve to No. 2 wharf in Timaru Harbour where the bodies were put in the fishing boat Buda, taken beyond the harbour entrance and cast into the sea.

Mr Justice Bisson said there was no suggestion that Raroa was involved in the killings. Raroa’s appeal against conviction related to all five counts and turned on rejection by the trial judge of the defence of compulsion as defined in section 24 of the Crimes Act. The two men had not yet been tried for the murders, Mr Justice Bisson said.

"Accordingly, the Crown was obliged to prove the murders against Raroa and there was

really no challenge made to the Crown evidence about them,” he said. The trial judge said the two were each guilty of murder, and the appeal did not dispute that finding.

Mr Justice Bisson said the Appeal Court agreed with the trial judge that Raroa helped the men, who were related to his wife, “for reasons best known to himself.” No threats were needed to gain his help but if he “narked” he would be "wasted” in the same way as Hartley and Wilson. Grounds for the appeal against conviction failed and leave to appeal was refused.

On the appeal against sentence, Mr Justice Bisson said the Court thought the trial judge rightly regarded it as a serious offence of its kind. "The murders themselves were outrageous crimes,” he said. “The applicant played a part in a gruesome sequel to those murders.”

Three years imprisonment was not manifestly excessive in all the circumstances of the offence and the offender, he said, and leave to appeal against sentence was refused. 1