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A woman who told a jury earlier this year she knew who robbed the Kaiti TAB in 2016, now says it was all lies and that police put her up to it.
At a re-trial for three accused men, which began yesterday in Gisborne District Court, witness Lavine Tawhai, 21, told a different jury there was no truth to her previous evidence and police statement. She made everything up because police threatened to place her baby in care, and jail her and her family.
Sidney Hapi Rutene, 23, Aaron Stephen Reedy, 40, and Jacob Noanoa, 22, have each pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery of a female bar manager on duty about 7.15pm on January 26, 2016.
Tawhai appeared via AV-link to give evidence in a re-trial, which began yesterday. (A trial in February was abandoned for undisclosed reasons.)
Closed-circuit television footage from inside the TAB showed the robbery was fast-moving and involved three men covered head-to-toe in nondescript clothing and each wearing gloves.
An alarmed bar manager moved out of the way when one of them leaped the counter and took $300 from a till. A man on the other side of the counter, was brandishing an object, possibly a hammer, at patrons.
Evidence showed the men entering and leaving the mall from the direction of Jackson Street.
Prosecutor Clayton Walker told the jury the case hinged on identity.
Police at the time had nothing to go on except a constable’s sighting of a distinctive black BMW in which there were at least two men and woman, at the intersection of De Lautour and Rutene roads, shortly after the alleged incident.
The car is believed to have been Lavine Tawhai’s. Police pursued it the next morning when a male was seen driving it and appeared to be its only occupant. The chase was abandoned when it became too dangerous.
It was impounded later that evening when Police stopped Tawhai driving it.
Arrested on other matters in May, 2016, Tawhai made a DVD interview with police. Part-way through it she passed a note to the interviewing officer Detective Richard Downes saying there was another matter about which she was willing to make only a written statement.
In it, she dobbed in the three accused for the robbery and said she was with them on the day and under duress to assist by driving them to the mall in her car.
Yesterday, she told the jury her statement was nothing but lies — coerced out of her by police and with information they provided.
Detective Downes had told her the baby she was expecting (her first) would be taken into care, and that she and her parents would be jailed.
Evidence she gave at the trial in February was similarly fabricated. She had just had another baby, was unwell, and on medication, Tawhai said.
Presiding Judge Brooke Gibson granted Mr Walker leave to cross-examine Tawhai.
Mr Walker put aspects of the statement to her noting additional details added when she gave evidence.
Tawhai’s responses were consistent. She “honestly” could not remember and none of what she previously said was true.
Two days ahead of the last trial, police gave her a copy of her statement and “drummed it into her” that she needed to adhere to it, Tawhai said. She had memorised all six pages of it.
Mr Walker put it to her that was quite a feat, but Tawhai disagreed.
Asked if she could still remember it now, Tawhai said she “wouldn’t have a clue”.
Asked about her identification of the men, Tawhai said she had never met any of them, apart from Noanoa who had once dated her cousin and who she had met perhaps twice at her cousin’s house.
Shown a CCTV “still” of a car outside the Mangapapa Four Square the morning of January 26, 2016, she could not say if it was hers.
It was more than two years ago — too long to remember her number plate, Tawhai said.
Asked who it was getting into the vehicle with a packet of nappies, Tawhai said Noanoa but struggled to recall his name.
She previously said they had been swimming together that morning and stopped to get nappies for Noanoa’s child, who was at his parents’ house. Now, she “wouldn’t have a clue” why she said that.
Asked about the night of the robbery, Tawhai said she was drinking at home in Huxley Road and made numerous trips with various family members in her car to a bottle store in town. Each time, they drove past Kaiti Mall.
She knew nothing about a police pursuit the following morning, despite previously saying Noanoa was driving her car with her in it hiding out of sight.
Proceeding