KEY POINTS:
A property developer says his business partner kidnapped and partially stripped him, demanding money and threatening to set his house on fire.
Kim Spencer told the Auckland District Court yesterday that his former business partner, Richard George Anthony Kroon, claimed during the alleged kidnapping to have been involved
in the arson of the home of fellow property developer Mark Lyon.
Mr Spencer said Kroon then threatened to do the same to him.
Kroon and Craig Hamish Weller each face charges of kidnapping and demanding with menaces in relation to events that allegedly took place on November 16, 2004, at Pakiri, north of Auckland.
Kroon and Spencer had been involved in several joint ventures in Rodney District, the court heard, with Mr Spencer's role being to find properties to sub-divide and to arrange consents and other matters to ready the property for sale, and Kroon's to provide or arrange finance.
Mr Spencer claimed that some months before the alleged incident Kroon had told him he was short of funds and wanted Mr Spencer to put money into the joint venture, something he had declined to do.
The Crown's case, as outlined to the jury yesterday, was that Kroon organised the kidnapping and recruited Weller, a member of the Mothers Motorcycle Club in Palmerston North - the same club that Kroon had once ridden with.
Two cheques totalling $4000 - one dated the day of the kidnapping, the other eight days later were payment. During the kidnapping, Mr Spencer was beaten, stripped naked below the waist and forced to sign documents consigning 50 per cent of his business profits to Kroon, including money from projects Kroon was not involved in.
That would have meant Kroon getting about $2.5 million from a deal Mr Spencer had recently concluded with another business partner.
Prosecutor Anna Pollett told the jury that Weller's role was to pose as "Peter" - a potential buyer who lured Mr Spencer to the Pakiri property by claiming his wife had fallen in love with it and that he needed to view it urgently before flying to Australia.
Weller met Mr Spencer in the carpark of the Sawmill Cafe in Leigh, and followed him to the Pakiri property - Mr Spencer in his Range Rover, towing a trailer carrying a quad bike; Weller driving a black V8 Mercedes Kompressor - where they inspected the site and house before Weller asked to see inside the boatshed.
Mr Spencer testified that when in the shed with "Peter", a man walked in wearing a balaclava and carrying what looked like a diver's knife. He had a sheet of plastic under his arm. Three other balaclava-clad men came in, one carrying a pistol. Someone had said something in a language Mr Spencer thought was Russian.
"There was a bit of a tussle ... and I got smacked around a bit. 'Peter' told me to behave and take my pants and undies off and to sit down on the plastic sheet."
Mr Spencer said he complied after being punched a bit more and was sitting naked below the waist against the shed wall when Kroon walked in carrying a folder with papers inside it.
"Kimmy my boy," Mr Spencer told the court Kroon had said, "It never would have come to this if you had just done as you were told."
Mr Spencer said Kroon ordered him to "sign some documents, transfer some money and do as I was told".
He told him to "f-off " but decided to comply after further punches and a kick to the ribs from "Peter". Kroon held the documents while he signed.
Kroon left the shed twice and at one point told him: "This thing is bigger than both he and I put together ... he had backers who were involved, including people who were in the shed."
Mr Spencer said Kroon threatened his marriage and family if he didn't sign.
"He said that what happened to Mark Lyon - he [Kroon] was party to that and the same thing would happen to me if I didn't toe the line." Mr Spencer told the court that Mr Lyon had been in partnership with Kroon and Mr Lyon's house had burned down.
Under cross-examination by Kroon's lawyer, Paul Davison, QC, Mr Spencer agreed he was put into bankruptcy through previous dairy farming ventures, that had involved several legal proceedings, and had started as a property sub-divider after his release from bankruptcy.
He had approached Kroon late in 2002 and they had gone into joint ventures.
Mr Davison raised Mr Spencer's treatment of $200,000 of GST which Inland Revenue rejected and which Kroon as joint-venture partner had not approved. Mr Spencer said Inland Revenue's position was that it wasn't appropriate but he couldn't recall the details.
The case is being heard before Judge David Wilson, QC and is expected to take four weeks. Kroon and Weller deny the charges. Mr Davison has said his client admits meeting Mr Spencer that day but denies any of the alleged events occurred.
