Paul Holmes: Jury duty fulfilled in Gundry case

Alan Gundry. Now there's a name to debate, and the talkback debate was vociferous when the news of that verdict broke. The case was not on anyone's radar, really, as far I could see. It certainly was by the end of the week.

Mr Gundry and his wife had a few friends over on a summer's evening back in January. In Orewa. Gundry and his good friend Gene Atkins drink some beers. Atkins starts arguing with his partner. Atkins and his partner go home. There, the argument gets violent. His partner flees their houses to seek shelter at the Gundry house. She hides in the bathroom. Atkins arrives in a rage, demands to know where his partner is. As he pursues his inquiries, he punches out another guest badly. He confronts Nicole MacDonald, Gundry's partner. There is chaos. Atkins is in a rage. Gundry goes to one cabinet, gets his pig hunting rifle, then to another cabinet, takes six rounds and shoves them in the breech. He does this because he knows how "aggressive" Atkins can be. Atkins and Gundry meet in the foyer of the garage. Mr Gundry lifts his rifle and shoots Atkins. Twice. One shot hits Atkins in the chest and he dies on the garage floor.

To Gundry's plea that he was simply protecting his family the jury found, unanimously, that Gundry was not guilty of murder. The jury had no doubt Gundry had a monster in some state of inebriation in his house, that the situation was out of control and that he had the right to shoot the man, and if he shot him dead, then that was unfortunate.

Do I have any problems with this? You know, in the end, probably not. Except for one or two little things.

Let me be the first to say that I wasn't there that night. Those who were not there cannot really gauge the intensity of the aggression that Atkins was inflicting on that gathering. He barged into the house and punched a guest randomly and badly. His own partner was so frightened of him she had run back to the Gundry house and was hiding in fear in their bathroom. Indeed, the same woman testified at Gundry's trial that Alan Gundry was the only man who could calm Atkins down when he was "aggressive". So this was not the first time.

But, nevertheless, when a good friend goes barmy in your house, do you go and get your pig rifle and throw six shots in the breech? I do not have a pig rifle of course, or any gun for that matter. I have known some hard case people, and there are hard cases where we live in Hawke's Bay, and they possess and use guns, but I do not think anyone I know would go and load a pig rifle when a friend cut up rough after a few beers.

Having said that, people were obviously very frightened in that house. This might have been the night Atkins was going off his trolley big time. This might have become a defining night for that group of people even if there had been no shooting. Atkins might have killed someone that night - his partner, perhaps.

Another thing is this. Did Gundry give Atkins any warning that he had his rifle, that it was loaded and he was prepared to use it? There is no suggestion in any of the reports that he did. I find that strange. Surely he should have. Surely, if Gundry is truly not guilty of murder or manslaughter, his object in arming himself would have been to show Atkins he had the gun so as to persuade Atkins to desist from his violent course. Instead, he shot not once but twice the friend his father says he loved. Straight in the chest. This, a man who hunts and knows what a pig rifle does. This all weighs heavily, I'm afraid.

But in the end, a jury of Gundry's peers heard the relevant parties testify, saw them, assessed them, saw Alan Gundry in court over eight days and decided to a man and woman that Alan Gundry should not be convicted of murder.

They were satisfied this was a legitimate defence of family, friends and a terrified woman and that Alan Gundry was not guilty of murder. And we can all, I think, kind of see that it was a legitimate defence. People have had enough of violence and invasions of family homes and the jury seems to have reflected that.

Alan Gundry is a good family man, it seems, with two young daughters, and he gave shelter to a woman fleeing a man in a violent rage. He had strong family support. But there will be immense and permanent pain between the two families. As he said outside the court after his acquittal, there are no winners in this.

If he was gracious towards Atkins' family, he nevertheless said a peculiar thing. He said: "He was my mate and I lost him." Lost? "Lost", in this case, is a word of denial. Well, he did lose him of course, and perhaps he lost his mate that night even before he shot him. But essentially Atkins is "lost" because Gundry wasted him. Or, perhaps Gundry is himself so traumatised by what happened that night that he has to speak passively and is unable to use the phrase, "I shot him". I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Let's not be holier than thou in something like this. It could be that what Alan Gundry did that night was the right thing to do, for everyone's sake, as drastic and as fateful as it was.

The jury thought so. And that suits me. It has to.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY