Jurors visit crime site

BY PETER DE GRAAF

You'd be hard pressed to find a greater contrast. The six men and six women, chosen at random to fulfil a democratic duty, were led into a forest where the only sounds were the crunch of feet on gravel, the murmur of subdued voices, the trills of grey warblers and chimes of tui. Yet in that peaceful forest they were asked to imagine scenes of unspeakable horror.

Some of those scenes were depicted in photo booklets they carried, clutched to their chests, images of a man with his arms and feet bound with electrical cord, his throat cut, allegedly with a thistle grubber.

The jurors are serving in a murder trial now under way in the High Court at Whangarei, in which the Crown alleges that Wayne Bracken and Neville Dangen kidnapped Aucklander Jack Davis, then killed him in the bush near Totara North, a usually sleepy settlement beside Whangaroa Harbour.

Bracken's lawyer, however, maintains his client "wasn't there and didn't do it"; Dangen's lawyer says Bracken inflicted the killer blow.

The jury will spend five weeks in the Whangarei High Court listening to as many as 95 witnesses, but on Thursday they had a chance to see first-hand the places they had heard so much about.

They were joined on the site visit by Justice Edwin Wylie, Judge's Associate Anita Earp, Crown prosecutor Mike Smith, defence lawyers Gary Gotlieb and Michael Dodds, court staff and police.

Their first stop was Totara North, where they hiked 20 minutes up the Wairakau Stream track to the point where police made their grisly discovery down a bush-clad bank in February last year.

A few jurors had come prepared with gumboots; Justice Wylie had exchanged his robes for cargo pants.

A police officer waited at the bottom of the track with a four-wheel-drive in case the climb proved too great a challenge for some, but he was left to enjoy his sandwiches and the birdsong in peace.

Their next stop was a modest bridge over a mangrove-lined creek on Otangaroa Road, where a detective pointed out Taratara Rock, the sheer crag that looms over the western end of Whangaroa Harbour.

The dusty convoy then wound its way via twisting metal roads to Salvation Road, an ironic name given what the Crown says happened there 18 months ago, where another police escort was waiting and photography was barred "for safety reasons".

There the jurors were shown a farmhouse on the far side of a valley, a house like thousands of others scattered across rural New Zealand.

Their last stop was Waipapa, where an off-duty policeman had broken up a roadside fist-fight and unwittingly began to unravel a gruesome tale.

Four weeks from now that tale will have an ending, one way or another.

The trial continues today.