Girl who drove car into partygoers 'had no intent' to murder, says lawyer

By CLAIRE TREVETT

Julie Johnson's lawyer has said a beating the Whangarei murder accused received just before she drove her car through a party, killing a girl, was enough provocation to reduce any verdict of murder to manslaughter.

In his closing submissions in the High Court at Whangarei yesterday, Arthur Fairley said the defence did not believe Johnson had the intent needed to be guilty on the murder charge and 15 charges of causing grievous bodily harm or injury with intent.

Johnson has denied the charges, which followed the death of 16-year-old Renee Brown and injuries to several others after she drove her car through the crowd at a party in Springs Flat, Whangarei, on February 16 last year.

Mr Fairley said Johnson had faced enough provocation - she was kicked and "jeered at" while lying on the ground just before she went to her car - to reduce murder to manslaughter.

In his opening, Crown prosecutor Philip Smith said although the beating was "out of the bounds of human decency" it was not enough to send someone into the blind, uncontrollable rage needed for a defence of provocation.

"It would be extraordinary to say that this sort of melee that went on would have driven the ordinary 19-year-old woman to get up and kill."

Mr Smith said by law Johnson was guilty of murder if she had deliberately driven the car at the partygoers knowing it could kill someone and taking the risk of that, even if she did not intend to kill someone.

"That is the crux of the case here. You don't have a printout of her mind, but you are obliged to use your common sense and say everybody knows the consequences of such conduct."

He said threats to kill were overheard by three witnesses just after Johnson was beaten.

Another witness saw her car pull out to face the party instead of the exit, and move slowly before the headlights flicked on and it accelerated straight towards the crowd. "That is not panic."

But Mr Fairley said the jury needed to consider that she was a 19-year-old, who was drunk and had just been badly beaten up, when they decided on her state of mind at the time. The combination had fuelled her blind panic.

He said she had known her sister and cousins were still in the crowd at the time. "It is highly unlikely that with murderous intent she would be driving into a crowd where there was a good chance her sister was."

Justice Colin Nicholson will sum up the case today before the jury retires to consider its verdict.