Sarah Lee Tarei and her partner, Samuel Fane, are on trial in the High Court at Tauranga. Photo / File
The girlfriend of one of two men killed in an alleged double murder in Ōmanawa has told a jury of hearing gunshots then finding her partner shot.
Samuel Deane Fane, 26, is on trial in the High Court at Tauranga defending two counts of murder.
He is accused of killing Paul Lasslett, 43, and Nick Littlewood, 32, at Lasslett's Ormsby Lane property on February 11 last year.
Fane's partner, Sarah Lee Tarei, 25, is also on trial. She has pleaded not guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the alleged murders.
The Crown alleges Samuel and his older brother Anthony Fane, now deceased, committed the murders after Anthony believed his partner, Jessie Lee Booth, was having an affair with Lasslett. The court has been told Anthony told a friend he did not believe his new son with Booth was his.
Booth was found dead on February 14. Police believe Anthony killed her on or around February 9, before he was shot dead by police on February 13.
Lasslett and Littlewood's bodies were found inside Lasslett's converted dwelling shed.
Alana Wingrove, who lives in Tauranga, told the court yesterday that on February 11 last year she and her son were living in the top house at Lasslett's property.
Wingrove said she was Lasslett's girlfriend and had known him for several years, but she had only lived at the property for two weeks.
She said Lasslett and another man, Daniel de Martin, had been doing some work on the property throughout the day.
Wingrove said she got up to have a drink in the kitchen shortly before 7.30pm.
She said she saw a sky-blue Ford Territory coming down the driveway but did not think much of it.
"I walked back to the couch and sat next to my son. I had barely sat down when I heard gunshots, about six or seven of them ... It was really quick."
Wingrove said she told her son to get down on the ground.
"I heard a vehicle take off and then heard about five more shots. I told my son to stay where he was and went to look out of the ranch slider to see what was going on."
When she looked she could see de Martin. She said he yelled out to her to come down to Lasslett's dwelling as he had been shot and he thought both men were dead.
"I ran down to where Dan was and he was calling 111 and calling out Nick Littlewood's name," she said.
Wingrove said she went inside Lasslett's dwelling and saw him lying on the floor on his stomach. She believed Littlewood might have been lying near a desk.
She said she checked on Lasslett and saw he had been shot.
"I think I took the phone over from Dan while he went to get help, and then I went to check my son was okay and told him to stay inside."
Wingrove said she then went back to Lasslett and, following a 111 operator's instructions, she used a towel to put pressure on his chest.
She said a neighbour, who was a nurse, arrived and took over putting pressure on her partner's wound. Wingrove said she went back to her son and they waited for the police.
Wingrove said it was about two minutes from when she heard the first shots to when she heard the vehicle leave the property.
Nurse Rosalind Jackson told the jury she and her husband, Wayne Bowick, were living in Ormsby Lane at the time of the shootings.
She said they were sitting on their deck when a vehicle drove up and the male driver told them he urgently needed a nurse because his friend had been shot in the chest.
The driver, de Martin, was "quite agitated and distressed" and said two people had been shot, Jackson said.
Jackson said after confirming the shooter had left, she grabbed some towels and she and her husband drove to Lasslett's property following de Martin's vehicle.
She said de Martin also told her one person "may still be alive".
Jackson said when they walked inside the dwelling she found Lasslett lying down. Wingrove was next to him on the phone to 111, she said.
A very upset Wingrove handed her the phone, she said.
Jackson said Littlewood was lying on his side between some furniture, and when she checked his pulse he was already dead.
When she checked Lasslett's pulse there appeared to be a "faint radial pulse" but there was nothing shortly afterwards.
Wayne Bowick said he stepped over a gun cartridge as he entered the dwelling and assisted his wife and the police at the scene.
The Fanes' cousin, Rerepo Nicholas, told the court that on the day of the shootings Samuel Fane texted him urgently asking for some bullets.
Nicholas said his cousin also texted him it was a "life or death situation".
He said he was reluctant at first but asked his nephew Marona Ruaporo to place some .22 bullets in his mailbox, and texted Fane to tell him where they were.
He said that when Samuel and Anthony arrived at his house they told him they did not need the bullets any more. On February 15, he threw the bullets off a bridge.
The trial, set down for four weeks, will continue on May 10.