Killer threw rocks from bridge before

Christopher Currie

Ngatai Rewiti is alleged to have thrown rocks on to motorists driving under the same overbridge from which the 14-year-old schoolboy killed Christopher Currie.

Mr Currie would have celebrated his 21st birthday next week.

Instead, his family are dealing with a manslaughter verdict against Rewiti, now 15, handed down in the High Court at Auckland yesterday afternoon.

The jury of 10 men and two women cleared the schoolboy of murder but found him guilty of the August 19 manslaughter of Mr Currie.

Shortly before the jurors retired to consider their verdict, Justice Helen Winkelmann told them to put their emotions to one side.

"The trial will have caused strong feelings of sympathy for Christopher, the young women in that car and their families.

"Acknowledge those feelings but you must consciously put them to one side," she said.

Rewiti, an Otahuhu College student, was 14 when he lugged an 8kg block of concrete from a construction site near the overbridge and dropped it on the red Honda Mr Currie was driving.

The rock punched through the windscreen, leaving a perfect hole, glanced off Mr Currie's chin and struck his chest, killing him instantly.

One of Mr Currie's relatives said police had told them Rewiti was suspected of throwing rocks off the overbridge before the incident.

A senior officer confirmed Rewiti's friends had told police it was not the first time he had done it, but the teenager would not admit to that.

Rewiti has never agreed to a police interview.

Justice Winkelmann lifted Rewiti's name suppression order when the jury handed down its verdict.

The Crown, led by Aaron Perkins, argued that although Rewiti might not have intended to kill Mr Currie, he had a conscious appreciation that throwing the concrete off the overbridge could kill.

That amounted to murder.

But defence lawyer Lester Cordwell said Rewiti was a 14-year-old boy who had no conscious appreciation that when he threw the concrete it would kill anyone.

Mr Cordwell said all Rewiti had told his brother and friend who were standing on the bridge that night was that he wanted to hit a car.

Justice Winkelmann said the jurors had to decide if the teenager appreciated the human consequences when he let the rock go.

They deliberated from 11.30am until 3.15pm before returning their verdict.

Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone said Mr Currie's familyhad asked him to represent them outside the court.

It was an emotional time for them and they had elected not to say anything.

Mr Grimstone said the bottom line was that the conviction was a deterrent message for others contemplating senseless acts.

"The conviction of manslaughter for the unlawful killing of one man by another is that message and no doubt it will be reflected in sentencing," he said.

Since Mr Currie's death there have been more than 50 reports of items thrown off overbridges on to motorways around Auckland.

Mr Rewiti's father, David Rewiti, and stepmother, Katrina Rakuraku, refused to comment after the verdict as they ran down the street in the rain.

One of Rewiti's aunts said what he had done had been a stupid mistake.

Another told the Herald she felt for the Currie family.

"We still have our boy. We can see him when we want, they don't have theirs."

During the trial Rewiti was said to have told one of his friends at school on the Monday morning after he threw the concrete that he was "ruthless".

The reference, however, was to youth gang associations.

The boy he was with on the night he threw the rock had "crip" tattoos on his forearm.

Rewiti was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on September 6.