Murder victim spoke of threats

Wellington woman Allison McPhee told a friend that she was being threatened by the man who now stands accused of her murder. Photo / supplied

Wellington woman Allison McPhee told a friend about a month before she was brutally killed that she was being threatened by the man who now stands accused of her murder, a court was told today.

John Hone Haerewa, 53, has pleaded not guilty in the High Court in Wellington to beating 42-year-old Ms McPhee to death at her suburban Newtown home in July last year.

A witness for the prosecution, Moeroa Pokoati, said today she had known Ms McPhee for about seven years and visited her at her home twice a week.

"We got on well. We're both Scots."

Ms McPhee was "a good drinker", who also smoked tobacco and cannabis, "usually on pay (benefit) days because she wasn't financial".

The witness said she met Haerewa there three times. Although Ms McPhee said he had been threatening her, she gave no details.

"Their relationship was on and off."

The accused used to leave some of his things, including clothing, at the bed-sit, but if he left them too long Ms McPhee would throw the stuff out, Ms Pokoati said.

Her friend was a tidy person and did not like mess,

Ms McPhee also got upset when Haerewa sniffed glue. She could not bear the smell of solvents, which gave her headaches.

"She would kick him out. He would go back to the streets."

When he did return, he always knocked and Ms McPhee let him in.

"Sometimes he would bring over soup kitchen food for her as well."

The witness said she never saw any violence but the pair could be "verbal".

She told the court how, on one of her visits, Haerewa turned up. When admitted, "he went straight to the kitchen and made a feed."

Ms McPhee "didn't like it - that was her food. She was only on a benefit. She told him to leave."

The last time Ms Pokoati saw her friend alive was on their regular Tuesday get-together at the Newtown bed-sit on July 20 last year.

The prosecution alleges Allison McPhee was bashed to death in a "frenzied" attack at her own home on or about the night of July 22, 2010. In what are believed to be her last moments she had made a brief 111 call which was disconnected abruptly.

Six days later, a concerned friend forced the front door of the flat and found her bloodied body lying in the passageway. Ms McPhee died from multiple head injuries.

Handwriting expert David Boot told the court of comparing a note found on the front door of Ms Phee's home and another message written on the blood-splattered wall of the passage.

The first said: "Gone to Featherston with Hone. Back Tuesday."

On the wall above the body was: "Die you f**king nark."

He concluded that both appeared to be by Hone Haerewa's hand.

Cross-examined by defence lawyer John Miller, he replied: "I consider it unlikely, but just possible, someone else could have written it."

- NZPA