The trial for the suspected murder of a Hawke's Bay father has begun.
Johnnie Puna, 19, is standing trial in the High Court at Napier before Justice Helen Cull QC after pleading not guilty to the murder of Haumoana man Mark Geoffrey Beale.
A jury of eight males and four females will determine if the accused murdered 45-year-old Beale, who was found unconscious with critical injuries near his home in Haumoana at about 7am on Waitangi Day.
The father-of-two was rushed to Hawke's Bay Hospital but died the following morning as a result of significant brain injuries.
Crown prosecutor Steve Manning opened the Crown's case by telling the jury the defendant had met the Hawke's Bay father just hours before he meted out a series of fatal blows to the man's head.
The defendant, his uncle and cousin had been socialising and drinking pre-mixed alcohol at the Tukituki rivermouth that February evening, he said.
The court heard Beale, who lived on Grange Rd just several hundred metres from where he was later found, was a loner and had a long-standing problem with alcoholism.