A man facing robbery and murder charges once received a police commendation for attempting to foil an aggravated robbery, a jury in the High Court at Auckland heard yesterday.
Pago Savaiinaea is charged with others as a party to the murder of Mangere Bridge ASB Bank teller John Vaughan in May
last year.
The gunman, Ese Junior Falealii, is serving a life sentence, having pleaded guilty to Mr Vaughan's murder and the killing a week earlier of part-time pizza worker Marcus Doig.
Savaiinaea's lawyer, David Jones, yesterday produced a Herald photograph of five people who tried to prevent an aggravated robbery of a Mobil service station in Mt Wellington in 1998.
One of those was Savaiinaea.
His brother, Thomas, who was also in the photo, told the court that they had received commendations from the Mayor of Manukau City, Sir Barry Curtis, the local MP, the head of Mobil and the police.
Pago Savaiinaea, 27, of Otara, is one of four people on trial.
Also facing charges are Joseph Sam Samoa, 28, of Mangere and William Logan Johansson, 27, of Otara, who are accused of being involved in the murder of Mr Doig and the attempted murder of the pizza parlour owner, John Wilfred Bell.
Samoa faces five charges of aggravated robbery, having pleaded guilty to four others at the start of the case and another one during the trial, including the robbery of the pizza parlour. Johansson faces 12 aggravated robbery charges, Savaiinaea three.
A fourth man, Kenneth Edward Kitiseni, 33, of Manurewa, also faces three aggravated-robbery counts.
