Wiremu Birch killing: Victim’s partner says she initially lied to police but is now telling her ‘truth’

Hendrix Kahia is on trial in the High Court at Hamilton for the third time defending the murder of Taupō man Wiremu Birch on October 11, 2013. Main image / Belinda Feek

The partner of a Taupō man stabbed to death in a fight says she changed her statement to police about who was responsible for his death, nine months after he died because it was all a “lie”.

Wiremu Birch died after being stabbed three times by a man during a fight on Hinekura Ave during the early hours of October 11, 2013.

The Crown alleges that man is Hendrix John Kahia, who is currently defending a murder charge, for the third time, in the High Court at Hamilton.

But, the defence claims the killer is another man, Kansas Tareha, the man Birch’s partner Waimarama Nicoll had initially blamed.

Nineteen-year-old Birch had been drinking “hot stuff”, or Johnnie Walker red label and Jim Beam, during the day and evening with Nicoll, whānau, and associates and went on to become “very drunk” the night he died.

He got into two fights; one with his brother, Thomas, and another with the defendant’s brother, Raymond “Porky” Kahia after allegedly peering into a toilet window of a Black Power house.

He was also seen stumbling, slurring his words, yelling Mongrel Mob gang slogans, and assaulting Nicoll as they walked home.

Defence counsel Rob Stevens grilled Nicoll about her initial statement that Tareha stabbed Birch and not Kahia.

He submitted that she had repeated Tareha’s name so many times that the first officer to the scene thought Birch’s name was Kansas.

“The Constable initially thought that Wiremu’s name was Kansas because she asked him, ‘Kansas where are you hurting?’

“Do you recall that?” Stevens asked.

“No,” Nicoll replied.

Stevens put to her that she did know it was Tareha who stabbed him.

“He didn’t stab him, she replied. “I didn’t see Kansas jump out of the car.

“I apologise for all that, it wasn’t true,” Nicoll replied.

“It was in the heat of the moment, the situation I was in. They were the only two people that I knew, so I was just yeah, saying anything.”

When Stevens asked her about Kansas pushing her twice after he jumped out of the car, Nicoll said it was all “a lie”.

“It’s a lie because I didn’t see that happen. I didn’t see Kansas do that.”

Stevens also asked about Facebook messages she sent friends straight after the stabbing telling them that Tareha had stabbed Birch, before sending messages to Tareha;

“You f****** killed him, c***”, and “you f****** wait c*** I’m going to kill you”.

Police at the scene on Hinekura Ave in October 2013 where Wiremu Birch was fatally stabbed three times. Photo / Stephen Parker

However, she admitted being in regular contact with Tareha between February and June 2013, while Birch was in prison, but said she couldn’t remember texting him after Birch was killed.

Nicoll also denied being pushed, or clotheslined [hit with an extended arm], by Tareha and falling backward and hitting her head on the gutter.

Stevens put to her that she and Tareha were communicating within weeks of Birch’s death and that she had deleted all her Facebook messages with him.

Nicoll admitted deleting them in the last two years, but said she was either “drunk or abusing him”.

She “couldn’t remember” Tareha getting in touch with her 11 days after Birch’s death or keeping in touch until she went into the police station and changed her statement about his involvement on October 3, 2014.

Wiremu Birch was 19 when he died.

She’d initially told police that she ran up to him in the car when it arrived but he got out and shoved her violently, sending her backward onto the ground.

She changed her story to say Tareha stayed in the car the whole time and didn’t assault her.

“I went in to change my story because I had lied,” she said. “And had to fix what I said... for my truth. Not for Kansas or anyone else.”

“You changed your story about what Kansas had done,” Stevens said.

“I went in to change it because it’s the truth,” she replied.

She admitted talking to Tareha before and during the second trial, but she couldn’t recall what about.

“You weren’t talking about the weather, were you,” Stevens asked, to which she replied, “No”.

Stevens put to her that she was so drunk and high on drugs around that time that she can’t exactly remember what happened that night, so had been relying on Tareha.

“I don’t care what Kansas says. I’m not relying on Kansas to say anything.”

Asked by Stevens if she had contacted Tareha prior to this trial, Nicoll said she hadn’t.

“I have my babies to worry about, I don’t talk to nobody.”

In re-examination from crown solicitor Chris Macklin about why she messaged people saying Tareha killed Birch, Nicoll said, “I don’t remember that”.

“I was probably drunk.”

Earlier, Nicoll told Macklin she first met Tareha on social media, before she got pregnant with her and Birch’s daughter.

They later had a “sexual relationship but not a relationship”, she said.

She couldn’t recall how old she was or for how long it lasted but confirmed she wasn’t with Wiremu at the time and it was before he died.

Nicoll added that they were broken up at the time as Birch had “given me a hiding in Napier and that’s when I went out on my own”.

By the time of his death, Birch had been released from jail and he’d moved back to Taupō and visited her, “and yeah we kind of got back together”.

The trial continues.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.