A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
The unsworn statement of a drug user who lied and perjured herself in court was nowhere near the high standard of proof required to determine the fate of three men charged with aggravated robbery, a lawyer told a jury in Gisborne District Court yesterday.
Yet that was exactly what the jury were being asked to do, counsel Doug Rishworth said.
He was representing Sidney Hapi Rutene, 23, who, along with Aaron Stephen Reedy, 40, and Jacob Noanoa, 22, was on trial this week for the aggravated robbery of the Kaiti Mall TAB in January, 2016.
They were identified four months later by Lavine Tawhai, 21, who dobbed them in after a police DVD interview with her about other matters, including class A drug offending.
Her unsworn statement about the robbery (she refused to discuss it on camera) was key to the Crown’s case.
But it could not be safely relied upon, Mr Rishworth and lawyers for the co-accused said.
Tawhai claimed she drove the men to the mall in her black BMW about 7.15pm.
She was under duress when she waited there for them out of public view.
She did not inquire what they had done but read about the robbery later.
At a trial in February, she reiterated that evidence, however the trial was abandoned for unrelated but undisclosed reasons.
At a re-trial this week, Tawhai completely recanted, saying all her previous evidence was lies, made at a time when she was drinking heavily and using methamphetamine.
Police had put her up to it.
Closing the Crown case, prosecutor Clayton Walker said regardless of her current about-face, what Tawhai told the police two years ago could be trusted.
It was a detailed account of the whole day — not just the robbery — that aligned with the evidence, albeit limited, of other witnesses, including a police officer on cordon duty who spotted the BMW travelling away from the mall after the incident.
Similarly, Tawhai’s claim of being in the car the following morning with Noanoa when he led police on a high-speed chase, matched the evidence of an officer involved in that pursuit — although he had not noticed Tawhai in the car.
A text message Tawhai sent afterward, “hiding from pigs, f*****g car was in a pig chase”, also supported her claim.
It was clear from the DVD, that rather than being drunk, pressured by police, or offered inducements for her testimony, Tawhai was treated fairly and compassionately, Mr Walker said. There was no sign of her being intoxicated.
It was true she was not charged for any drug-offending but not because of any deal being struck.
So why did she give that evidence? Mr Walker said the jury might think she gave it because back then she was a different person — a heavily pregnant teenager willing to confide in police.
In their closing addresses, lawyers for the accused said nothing Tawhai had ever said could be trusted.
She had been unco-operative with everyone. Judge Brooke Gibson had declared her hostile to the Crown and she certainly had not done the defence any favours. She had continued with her stock answers — “I can’t remember”, “I don’t know”.
Counsel disagreed with Mr Walker that her early evidence aligned with that of other witnesses.
Counsel Mark Sceats, for Reedy, said his client was not any of the skinny, short, or athletic statures as witnesses inside the TAB described the assailants.
Counsel Leighvi Maynard, for Noanoa, said the constable on cordon duty had a good view of the people in the car but saw only three, not four, as Tawhai claimed.
Mr Rishworth, for Rutene, said the Crown was not responsible for the witnesses with whom it had to work. But Tawhai was its key witness and her evidence could not be trusted.
He did not wish to criticise police, who mostly did a good job, but they had dropped the ball with this case.
Security camera footage from outside the mall was lost, as was a crucial note Tawhai passed to Detective Downes during the DVD interview, in which she supposedly offered to speak off-camera about the robbery. Counsel had not seen either.
It would be unsafe for a jury to convict these men on such a serious matter on the strength alone of Tawhai’s unsworn statement, Mr Rishworth said.
Proceeding