The former owner of Port Rd Bakery in Whangamatā was accused of deliberately hitting a man with his wife's ute. Image / Google Maps
A jury was left to decide whether a bakery owner “took matters into his own hands” and deliberately struck a man with his vehicle, or if it was just an unfortunate accident with a man behaving “irrationally”.
Leslie “Brett” Henderson and his wife, Christine, owned Port Rd Bakery in Whangamatā and would arrive at the shop in the early hours of the morning.
On August 4, 2023, Christine arrived at the bakery “upset” because a man they knew who had mental health challenges had just thrown a metal bin liner at her car, as she was driving.
He’d been in the middle of the town’s main road as she drove down, and as she swerved around him, CCTV footage shows him throwing the metal bin and it hitting the side of her car.
Brett Henderson got in her Isuzu D-Max ute, and drove to find the man – Duane Jackison – who sometimes slept rough outside their beachside town bakery.
Jackison was hit by the vehicle soon after.
This week, in a jury trial in the Tauranga District Court, the Crown alleged Henderson was angry and “ticked off” – both about his wife being upset by Jackison, and the damage to a near-new ute, which Christine referred to as “her baby”.
The Crown claimed he went to find him, confront him, and “deal” with him.
But Henderson, who was represented by Philip Morgan KC, said he just wanted to have a “man-to-man” conversation with Jackison.
He said, under cross-examination by Crown Solicitor Anna Pollet, that he wasn’t angry, upset, or agitated; he had just wanted to understand why Jackison, whom he knew to be usually calm, had thrown a bin at his wife’s car.
He said when he saw Jackison on the road, he braked and swerved right to put his headlights on him, as he thought Jackison was about to throw the bin into his driver’s side window.
Henderson said, in “hindsight”, he realised he probably should have swerved left.
Morgan, in his closing address, said the Crown had not established in “any way, shape or form”, that his client intentionally struck Jackison with his vehicle.
Jackison passed away from unrelated health issues some months after the incident, so he wasn’t able to give his account of what happened, nor be cross-examined on “hearsay” statements he made to ambulance officers about being hit by a car.
In a statement given at the time, one of the officers said Jackison told her he “walked in front of a car”, while the other said he said he’d been “hit by a car”.
In his closing address, Morgan KC presented a number of possible scenarios about why Jackison might have been walking around on the road and throwing a bin around.
He outlined questions it would have been helpful to ask him, had he not unfortunately passed away – about what had happened, why he had been behaving that way, and what he said to the ambulance officers afterwards.
However, Judge David Cameron told the jury, in his summing up, they didn’t need to speculate about the unknown, they needed to focus on the evidence they had.
He explained the caution they should take with “hearsay” statements not tested in court, and also urged caution when the jury was analysing CCTV footage, telling them to recognise its limitations.
Much time was spent during the trial zooming in and replaying the council-supplied CCTV footage, but the Crown and defence drew different conclusions about what it showed.
The Crown said it made it clear Jackison was walking away, not holding a bin up in a threatening manner as Henderson claimed, when Henderson swerved towards him.
Morgan said Jackison was in the middle of the road, and Henderson was braking and attempting to take evasive action to avoid someone who was behaving irrationally, and had earlier thrown a metal bin liner at a car.
While that evasive action hadn’t been successful, it remained an “accident”, and there was nothing to prove Henderson had deliberately hit Jackison.
Jackison was examined by ambulance officers later that morning, after earlier being arrested for suspected wilful damage.
He was taken to Thames Hospital, and an ED doctor gave evidence to say he was found to have four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, as well as cuts and abrasions.
The Crown said the broken ribs and collapsed lung were caused by the impact with the ute; the defence said no one knew what happened to him after the impact with the car, but pointed to the fact Jackison had got “straight up” afterwards.
Henderson said the main impact had been with the bin, which Jackison had been holding up, and said that had caused the dent in the front of his ute.
He said afterwards, he got out of his ute and threw Jackison onto the ground, after he came towards him “ranting and raving”.
But whether Jackison’s injuries were caused by the impact with the car didn’t change whether they were caused intentionally, in the defence’s submission.
Morgan reminded the jury of the standard of proof – beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Ask yourself this, members of the jury, if you’re driving a car and somebody walks out in front of you, would you expect to be charged with some sort of driving offence?” Morgan asked.
He had reminded the jury that the car was “under braking” as Henderson swerved.
“No, because a person walked in front of your car, unless they did it so far off down the road that you’d have been able to stop. And then you’d be able to rely on the extent to which you hit the brakes.
“You wouldn’t dream of anybody alleging that you assaulted somebody deliberately with a weapon, and that can be proven against you beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The jury acquitted Henderson on the single charge of assault with a weapon.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.