Property developer Andrew Montgomerie is on trial in the Auckland District Court, accused of wounding a man at a 2021 cocktail party in Westmere. Photo composite / Alyse Wright and NZ Police
A swanky cocktail party attended by a well-to-do subset of Auckland’s property development sector came to an abrupt end five years ago when a stemless wine glass was smashed on a guest’s neck – necessitating an ambulance and emergency surgery.
The scene, on the back deck of a Westmere mansion, was recounted to jurors in the Auckland District Court today as the trial began for developer Andrew Montgomerie.
The 58-year-old has been awaiting trial since 2021, charged with wounding with reckless disregard for the safety of others. His lawyer has described the incident as an accident prompted by Montgomerie’s instinct for self-defence.
The alleged victim, who cannot currently be identified because he and his wife are seeking permanent name suppression, had arrived at the party around 6.30pm on April 16 that year after arranging a last-minute babysitter.
He recalled being greeted by hired help handing out glasses of champagne, and later by a stranger wandering around with a platter containing pre-arranged lines of cocaine and a straw.
He said he had taken a “very small amount” of the drug and was on his second glass of champagne when he and his wife noticed that Montgomerie and his wife were also at the party.
“They weren’t on particularly good terms,” prosecutor Isabella Joe told jurors today during the Crown’s opening address, explaining that the two had previously worked together but had ended the business relationship on a sour note after Montgomerie refused to pay the final bill.
“Look, if we run into him, I’ll just be calm and say hello nicely to him,” the complainant would later recall telling his wife, adding that he was shocked to see the person he hadn’t spoken to in four years.
The two did cross paths not too long thereafter – an accident, the complainant said, as he was trying to find his wife in the crowd.
He recalled greeting Montgomerie, who is larger than him, and offering a handshake.
“He squeezed my hand so hard that he sort of crushed the handshake and my fingers collapsed,” the complainant testified. “At that point, I knew I needed to extract myself from that situation.”
He said Montgomerie continued to hold his hand tightly as he said: “I’m surprised you’re shaking my hand given all the shit you’re talking about me.”
The complainant said he pulled his hand away and started to turn around when Montgomerie spoke up again.
“No, come back here,” he accused the defendant of ordering. “Come back here and say it to my face.”
The complainant said he now regrets it, but he turned back at that point and replied in an elevated but not yelling voice: “It’s not shit if it’s all true. You owe me money and millions of dollars to my mates.”
That appeared to have hit a nerve, according to prosecutors.
“Mr Montgomerie, angry and embarrassed, saw red and lashed out,” Joe said.
The complainant said the moments that followed felt like slow motion. He sensed coldness from the drink spilling down his chest followed by the warmth of blood. It felt like Montgomerie had been intentionally pushing the broken glass deeper into his neck, he said.
When he opened his eyes again, he said, he realised he was on his knees. He felt blood gushing from his neck with such pressure that he thought it necessary to put both hands over the wound, he recounted.
“I knew at that stage I was in a lot of trouble,” he said, explaining that he struggled to get up, then ran inside, shouting, “I need help. I need an ambulance. I’ve been stabbed in the neck.”
A bartender gave him a tea towel to cover the wound, and another person pulled him into the home’s entryway to administer first aid, he recounted. The complainant said he wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought he remembered Montgomerie and his wife stepping over him at some point as they exited the party before paramedics and police arrived.
“I was quite fearful for my life at that stage, given how much blood was coming out of my neck,” he testified.
He spent three days in hospital, including a two-and-a-half-hour surgery to remove glass shards from the wound and stitch it up.
During the defence opening statement and in cross-examination, lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, repeatedly emphasised his client “wasn’t high on coke like [the complainant]”. He suggested the other man had repeatedly exaggerated or lied about the sequence of events out of lingering spite for Montgomerie.
The defendant would give evidence later in the trial, he promised.
It was not true that Montgomerie was “some kind of commercial villain”, he said, adding that the bad blood stemmed from a legitimate business dispute regarding dissatisfaction with the complainant’s work. The unpaid invoice amounted to just over $4000 and had been written off by the complainant years earlier, he said.
It’s obvious neither man liked or trusted the other, and that resulted in a conversation where both employed bravado, Mansfield said. But it would have been crazy for Montgomerie to knowingly try to attack another person with a glass at a party where about 60 people were potential witnesses, he said.
In a statement around the time of his arrest, Montgomerie had told police he had raised his glass instinctually after seeing the other man come at him out of the corner of his eye, thinking he was about to throw a punch.
“When [there are] two grown men who don’t trust each other ... when one moves, unfortunately, the other is going to expect the worst,” Mansfield later elaborated.
“This was an unfortunate accident, but not intended. We only hold people accountable when they intend to do something.”
Prosecutors Joe and Ruby van Boheemen were dubious of the claim.
“It’s the Crown’s case that it’s ... a made-up version of events,” Joe said.
Under cross-examination, the complainant denied repeatedly that he had exaggerated. He was sober despite the cocaine and champagne, he insisted.
Mansfield pointed to medical reports noting that the wound caused no significant damage and describing an “uneventful recovery”.
When the same was put to the complainant’s wife, she took issue with Mansfield’s suggestion that the situation had been exaggerated.
“We thought he was going to die. The ambulance drivers thought he was going to die,” she said. “It was bad, and it was traumatic.”
She emotionally recalled kneeling by her husband’s side as they waited for paramedics to arrive.
“He said to me that he loved me and that he loved the kids, and he said that Andrew Montgomerie had stabbed him – glassed him,” she said. “He looked scared, but he was very controlled.”
Her testimony later had to be paused after she broke down into tears, saying she was traumatised recounting the evening. The cross-examination ended a short while later.
Neither the complainant nor his wife attended court today. Their evidence had been recorded earlier and played on a TV screen for the four-woman, eight-man jury, which was empanelled yesterday.
Montgomerie spent the day seated at a desk behind Mansfield instead of the dock, next to a communications assistant. Judge Paul Murray explained that the defendant needed the assistance due to an unrelated head injury that had occurred after the incident the jury is tasked with considering.
The trial is expected to continue tomorrow.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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