Four people are on trial at the High Court at Napier, for the murder of Boy Taylor. Photos / Ric Stevens
Four men have admitted their part in the “senseless street violence” which killed a homeless man on a central Napier street a week before Christmas 2024.
But they say that what happened was not murder.
Boy Taylor died where he fell in the assault early on December 18.
The four men are on trial in the High Court at Napier, charged with murdering Taylor and assaulting another man who was injured two hours earlier.
“This trial is all about what was in the mind of the defendants when they took part in the attack on Mr Taylor which killed him,” Crown counsel Fiona Cleary told the court today.
“Mr Taylor died lying where they left him.”
All four defendants have admitted manslaughter after Taylor’s death.
However, they deny murdering him.
They have also pleaded not guilty to injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in relation to the other man who was set upon earlier and whose shoes were stolen.
The accused are Tuarima Issac Alexander, 22, Rua Waka Hune, 34, Takarangi Kumar, 19, and a fourth man who has name suppression.
Cleary said the “sustained” attack on Taylor by all four defendants lasted two minutes and continued after he was on the ground.
She called it “senseless street violence”.
As one of the four stepped back, another would move forward to continue punching and kicking their victim.
Taylor was declared dead at the scene in Emerson St in the Napier CBD after the four had left and a passer-by found him and called an ambulance.
A post-mortem examination found that he had multiple skull fractures.
Taylor was 58 when he died and weighed only 62kg. He suffered from mental health issues and was living on the streets at the time he died.
His movements through Napier that night and into the early hours, pushing his possessions in a shopping trolley, were captured by CCTV cameras.
So were those of his attackers, who spent time drinking at bars as well as walking in the central city and on Marine Parade.
Police collected more than 40 hours of CCTV footage during the investigation. Stills and video excerpts have been shown to the jury of nine men and three women.
At the start of the trial, Justice David Boldt said that the question for the jury was whether the four were guilty of manslaughter or murder.
The Crown would have to establish that they each intended to kill Taylor, or that they knew that the assault was likely to kill him and they were prepared to take that risk.
Lawyers for each of the four accused said that their clients did not intend to kill Taylor.
For Hune, lawyer Matthew Phelps said there was no question that Taylor’s death was an “absolute tragedy” and his client was not shying away from his actions.
“But he says he is guilty of manslaughter and not murder ... He certainly did not intend to kill him,” Phelps said.
Counsel Nicola Graham said that Alexander acknowledged attacking both men that night.
“Mr Alexander admits taking part in the assault on Mr Taylor but he did not intend for him to die,” she said.
Counsel Leo Lafferty said his client, Kumar, also denied that he ever intended to kill Taylor or that he had “reckless murderous intent”.
Eric Forster, representing the defendant with name suppression, said that Taylor had thrown a bottle at the group before he was assaulted, cutting his client’s leg.
However, what happened after that was “violence that went too far”, Forster said.
“He didn’t intend to kill Boy Taylor.”
The trial is continuing.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.