Bullet whistled through collar after shooting

Press, 25 September 1987, Page 26

Bullet whistled through collar after shooting

Nelson reporter A man felt a bullet whistle through the collar of his jersey minutes after his girlfriend had been allegedly shot by her estranged husband, the District Court at Nelson heard.

"I thought I had been hit and I fell down to the floor,” said David John Bannan.

He was giving evidence at a depositions hearing at which David Kenneth Davies, aged 31, an unemployed driver, of Upper Moutere, faced charges of the murder of his estranged wife, Diane Claire Davies, aged 26, and the attempted murder of Mr Bannan in Nelson last July 22.

At the end of the hearing, before Messrs J. H. Cotterell and J. L. Gregory, Justices of the Peape, Davies entered pleas of not guilty to both charges, and was committed for trial in the High Court at Nelson at on November 2.

The Crown prosecutor, Miss Kristy McDonald, of Wellington, submitted most of the evidence in written form with the consent of the defence counsel, Mr Nigel Hampton, of Christchurch.

Mr Hampton, who reserved the defence, successfully sought suppression of evidence relating

to matters which took place before the alleged incident Evidence from the officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Roy Powell, who took a statement from the accused, was also suppressed until the trial. Mr Bannan, aged 22, was the only witness to give oral evidence. He said he had lived in a de facto relationship with Mrs Davies for about 10 months before the incident Mrs Davies had four children living with her, although one Corey, had lived with his father for a brief period. After receiving a telephone call on the afternoon of July 22, Mr Bannan and Mrs Davies drove in to Nelson. Mrs Davies went into her solicitor’s office and her husband walked along the street carrying their son, Corey. Mrs Davies and Corey later came out from the solicitor’s office and returned to the car. Mr Bannan said he heard a car pull up outside their house soon after 9.30 p.m. He looked out the window and saw it was David Davies’ car. He turned to Mrs Davies and said, “Guess who’s arrived” and went to lock the back door. Mrs Davies ■ said she would “handle it” and went out to the kitchen.

“I was in the bedroom when I heard a scream and came running back into the kitchen. Di was lying on the floor,” Mr Bannan said. “I was by the fridge and I saw David Davies pointing a gun through the window. He must have been about a foot from the window at the most and he was touching the window with the tip of the gun.”

Davies held the rifle to his shoulder, pulled the bolt back and fired, said Mr Bannan.

“I thought I had been hit and I fell down on to the floor, hitting the door frame,” he said.

The bullet passed his right shoulder and went through the collar of his jersey, before hitting the wall behind him. Mr Bannan headed back through the sitting room towards the bedroom.

"When I got to the bedroom I turned round and .Di was lying on the floor behind me. She turned to me and said, ‘I can’t feel anything; it’s all numb.”

Mr Bannan said he had heard a total of two shots.

He opened a window and yelled to a neighbour.

“Get an ambulance, Di’s been shot,” or “David’s just shot Di,” he said. Then he ran back to the kitchen and was about to climb through a window when he saw Davies running down the driveway towards his car. Davies had said, “if I . can’t get you one way, I’ll get you smother.” He then jumped in his car and drove off.

Mr Bannan tried to telephone 111, but the number was engaged and so he picked Mrs Davies up from the floor and tried to carry her to his car. The only blood he noticed was on her right hand. While carrying her, he slipped on the back door steps, so he placed her there and ran to a neighbour’s to inquire about the ambulance. He returned a. minute later with four or five neighbours. He took some blankets from the house, which a neighbour used to cover the injured woman.

Mr Bannan then telephoned the police and said Mrs Davies had been shot and that Davies had “done the shooting and just left” Cross-examined by Mr Hampton, Mr Bannan said the house was in the joint name of Diane and David Davies. The accused had been “put out of the house” on Father’s Day last year and witness had moved in about three weeks later to begin a de facto relationship with Mrs Davies. Mr Bannan said Davies’ son, Corey, was “crying and clinging to his father” when he was taken to Mrs Davies’ solicitor’s office. Witness denied "smirking or sneering” at Davies while seated in his car outside the lawyer’s premises. He also denied yelling out the window at Davies during the incident at the house.

Evidence was given by residents of Arrow Street, who heard shots being fired about 10.15 p.m. on July 22. Craig Douglas Brett said he had looked out the window and saw a man running slowly or walking fast down the driveway of No. 23 Arrow Street The man was carrying a rifle.

Witness rushed across the road and saw a woman lying on the back doorstep with blood on her face and the left side of her body. He could not find her pulse but thought she was still alive, although he could not "hear any air.”

David lan Gardiner said he saw Mrs Davies lying outside the back door. She was breathing in short

gasps and appeared to be staring into space. Sergeant William Homan, the first policeman to arrive at the house, said he checked the woman but there was little sign of life. He noticed a pool of blood on the kitchen floor and blood spots in the lounge and a bedroom.

Outside the back door, he found a knife sheath, an ammunition belt and a discarded cartridge case.

Dr James Jerram was called to the house by the police and pronounced Mrs Davies dead at 10.36 p.m. He noticed a bullet protruding - through the skin on the right hand side of the chest and what appeared to be an entrance wound in the back.

Constable Vickery Elizabeth Blake said she was on duty at the Nelson Police Station and received an emergency call from David Bannan telling of a shooting in Arrow Street.

At 10.28 p.m. she answered, a ring at the public counter, and saw a man standing in the foyer. She asked if she could help him and he said, “Yeah, I think you might be looking for me.” When she asked him his name, he said, “David Davies. I have come to give myself up.”

He said he was “fine and quite calm” and .asked to make a telephone call because “there will be people worried about me.”'

Constable Blake sais she smelled alcohol on his breath but he was not drunk and was in complete control of himself. Evidence was given by the accused’s brother, Owen James Davies, and his mother, Temaui Ari Davies, of the breakdown in his marriage and his efforts to obtain custody of his son, Corey, aged three.

Sergeant Wayne Wilkey, head of the Wellington police diving team, gave evidence of finding a .22 calibre rifle buried in the mud off the wharf at Port Nelson on July 24. Dr Stephen Clark, a pathologist at Nelson Hospital, conducted a postmortem examination of Mrs Davies’ body and found two bullet entrance wounds in the back and a bullet lodged just beneath the skin above the right breast. He also found she was about five weeks’ pregnant at the time of her death. Death was a result of a severe haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound to the right side of the chest, Dr Clark said.