Man found guilty of endangering lives

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 23

Man found guilty of endangering lives

PA Auckland A martial arts master, Robert Malcolm Mclnnes, has been found guilty of endangering the lives of three trainees during an exercise in July.

One trainee, Jason Mark Dooley, aged 17, drowned during a further training exercise with Mclnnes later on the same day.

No reference was made to the drowning during the five-day trial in the High Court at Auckland.

As the verdict was read by the jury foreman, members of the Dooley family hugged and kissed.

Jason’s mother, Ms Lyn Dooley, said later she was glad the jury had found the case proved. The grandmother of the dead youth, Mrs Alison Dooley, added, "We are pleased, but it does not bring Jason back. He was my only grandchild.” The jury took two hours to find Mclnnes guilty of discharging a firearm without reasonable cause in a manner likely to endanger the safety of the three students. Mclnnes denied the charge.

The charge arose out of an incident on Waiwera mudflats on July 17 when Mclnnes fired a series of

shots from a semi-auto-matic rifle near the trainees.

Mclnnes said he fired the shots so the trainees would get used to the sound of firearms and would not panic under pressure. The other two Sir Dorr trainees — Peter Pahi, aged 31, and Carl Fox, aged 19, told the Court they did not feel they were in any danger and respected Mclnnes, their sifu or master, for his ability. Some examples of Mclnnes’ prowess were given by the Sir Dorr school assistant chief in-

structor, Mr Predrag Dordevich. He told the Court he had seen Mclnnes summersault over 12 to 15 people and land on a layer of broken bottles.

On another occasion a sword was put centimetres from his throat and a brick was smashed on the back of his neck, to no ill effect. Mr Dordevich said he had also seen a Falcon 500 drive over Mclnnes’s stomach as he lay on a bed of broken glass. Defence counsel, Ms Lorraine Smith, said in her final address her client fired the shots with

prudence and caution. "There is not one scrap of evidence to support the view that the firearm was discharged in a manner likely to endanger life,” she said.

Mrs Smith said none of the trainees were worried by the shots. Mr Roy Ladd, for the Crown, said the account by Mclnnes of his past bore the “hallmark of a trickster and fake.” He said Mclnnes had said he stowed away at the age of 16 in a ship bound for China where he spent four years at a monastery learning martial arts philosophy.

But this had been rebutted by high school records which, Mr Ladd said, showed he was still a pupil at the time.

He said accounts by Mclnnes of his past were “lame and contrived attempts” to create a "smokescreen to avoid the issue.”

Mr Justice Smellie, however, warned the jury not to be sidetracked and to concentrate on the relevant evidence. He remanded Mclnnes on bail to appear for sentence on June 23. A condition of bail was that he surrender his passport.