Guilty of murder

Daniel Fraser showed no emotion after shooting dead an old mate, his ex-partner's boyfriend, 18 months ago - yesterday he was equally expressionless when he was found guilty of murder.
It took a jury in the High Court at Whangarei two hours to find Fraser, 45, guilty of murdering 39-year-old Lance Hughes at a Kaitaia house on Christmas Day 2005.
On Christmas morning Fraser went to the Grigg St property where his ex-partner Charmaine Cameron lived and found Mr Hughes in her bed.
He grabbed a baseball bat and started swinging it at Mr Hughes.
The court was told Fraser eventually lost the ensuing fight and left.
During the trial it emerged that Fraser and Mr Hughes had once been good mates.
About 5.30pm that day Fraser returned to the property. He smashed his way in and shot Mr Hughes, who had been sleeping on a downstairs bed, three times.
The first shot killed Mr Hughes rupturing his aorta, causing him to die from blood loss.
Fraser fired a second shot in Mr Hughes' left side and then shot him in his right buttock as he lay on the ground.
He was then seen to walk casually from the house with gun in hand and hours later surrendered to police without incident.
Fraser initially claimed he had been provoked into shooting Mr Hughes but Justice Wilson ruled there were no grounds for that defence.
However, the judge did allow Fraser's lawyer Christopher Comesky to advance self-defence as a possible defence.
Mr Comesky in his closing address said that, after losing the fight that morning, Mr Hughes had threatened to shoot Fraser if he returned.
Mr Comesky said Fraser had gone back intending to get Mr Hughes out of his house which he had built.
He took a gun because he had taken Mr Hughes' threat to shoot him seriously.
When Fraser entered the house he encountered Mr Hughes with a weapon.
Crown prosecutor Mike Smith said Fraser went to the house intent on killing Mr Hughes.
"Mr Lance Hughes was simply gunned down and killed on Christmas Day by the accused," he said.
Fraser had walked toward Mr Hughes after entering the house - an act nobody would do if they feared for their safety.
Mr Smith said if Fraser was acting in self-defence, he would not have fired the second and third shots.
Family and friends of Mr Hughes embraced each other shortly after the verdict was delivered.
Justice Wilson remanded Fraser in custody for sentence on August 31.