Ernest Albert claimed he was being set up because he was trying to leave the Rebels MC gang. Photo / Supplied
After a Rebels MC gang member was told he was not allowed to smoke methamphetamine inside his friend’s home, he stabbed the man multiple times, then repeated the act on an elderly neighbour.
But Ernest Albert claimed it was self-defence, alleging his two victims wanted to hurt him as he wished to leave the gang.
A jury didn’t buy Albert’s defence, however, and he was sentenced to nine and half years in prison.
Now, he’s turned to the Court of Appeal, taking issue with how the trial played out.
According to the court’s recently released decision, Albert was in Kawakawa in June 2023 following a tangi when a friend offered to give him a ride home.
But the plan changed, and the pair decided to go to his friend’s house for a few beers.
While there, a 76-year-old neighbour to the property dropped in.
As the drinks went on, they noticed Albert doing what they described as sign language.
The Crown case was that Albert asked his friend if he could smoke meth at the house, but was told he couldn’t.
It was suggested that Albert go to another house where he could instead smoke his drugs.
The neighbour offered to give him a ride and went outside where he waited in his car for Albert, while the friend went down his hallway to get a crate of beer.
In an unprovoked attack, Albert then stabbed his friend multiple times in the back and then went outside and stabbed the neighbour as he sat in his car.
Albert then stole the man’s car.
The 43-year-old was charged with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and went to trial in the Kaikohe District Court before Judge John McDonald in January this year.
At trial, Albert claimed he was acting in self-defence as he believed his friend and the neighbour wanted to harm him because he was trying to leave the Rebels MC gang.
Albert claimed his friend pressured him to enter the house, which he described at trial as “the house of horrors”, and they allegedly made comments suggesting he couldn’t leave.
Albert claimed his friend said: “You ain’t going anywhere ... The last c*** that tried to leave early, we used him for target practice.”
Albert said his friend and the neighbour made cryptic, menacing remarks, including calling him a “pothole” that needed to be “filled up with concrete”.
He claimed he felt trapped and threatened when he stabbed his friend during a struggle to escape.
Albert said he feared the man was retrieving a weapon when he saw the neighbour in the car, and stabbed him to get away.
According to the Court of Appeal’s decision, Albert’s lawyer, Connor Taylor, wanted to submit evidence in trial showing that the friend had a 2014 conviction of assault, and a photograph of him in front of a motorcycle wearing a vest with “MFFM” insignia, which suggested his gang affiliation.
But Judge McDonald ruled the evidence was inadmissible, stating the photo had “no probative value at all” and the man’s conviction was too remote, being nine years ago.
When summing up to the jury, Judge McDonald withdrew self-defence as a legal option for Albert’s stabbing of the neighbour.
Judge McDonald told the jury that self-defence required a threat from the person being harmed, and the neighbour, who was seated in the car with arms locked around the steering wheel, did not present one.
The rulings were central to Albert’s appeal.
But the Court of Appeal found them to be legally sound and that no miscarriage of justice had occurred.
“We also consider Mr Albert’s alternate claim to be fanciful,” the appeal court’s decision said.
“First, apart from Mr Albert’s claim that he felt threatened, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest he was at any risk of violence from [the friend] or [neighbour] at any time.
“On the contrary, on all of the available evidence, including Mr Albert’s, [the friend] was an unprovoked victim of potentially lethal violence at Mr Albert’s hands.
“Second, at the key moment, [the neighbour] was, as we have said, elderly and defenceless. If removing him from the car and escaping was the objective, stabbing him with potentially lethal consequences was utterly disproportionate to that goal.
“We cannot see how a jury, properly directed, could possibly find Mr Albert was acting in self-defence.”
The appeal was accordingly dismissed.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.