Not guilty verdict on GBH charges

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A jury took just under an hour yesterday to find an East Coast man not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to a fellow seaweed harvester while fighting over turf rights.

David Frederick Donnelly, 59, was on trial this week in Gisborne District Court on two alternatively-laid charges — that he either intentionally or recklessly caused grievous bodily harm to Leslie Ahuriri, also 59.

The charges arose out of a physical altercation between the two men, which lasted about five minutes, at the Waima boat ramp at about 9.30pm on Friday, July 26, 2019.

Mr Ahuriri’s eye was so badly injured, it had to be surgically removed two months later.

Donnelly accepted he must have caused the injury during the fight but denied knowingly doing so and said he was acting in self-defence.

He was represented by counsel Vicki Thorpe (assisted by counsel Alison Bendall).

Crown prosecutor Michael Blaschke contended Donnelly’s actions were deliberate, at the least reckless.

Donnelly could not claim self-defence because the force he must have used to inflict such an injury could only have been unreasonable and excessive in the circumstances, Mr Blaschke said.

In evidence earlier, the jury heard Donnelly, a Waipiro Bay resident, was harvesting seaweed at Waima when Mr Ahuriri, a Tokomaru Bay man employed by the same seaweed harvesting company, arrived to “confront” him.

Mr Ahuriri had a longstanding objection to Donnelly harvesting at Waima and wrongly believed he was not permitted to do so.

The trial was presided over by Judge Turitea Bolstad.