She spent about a week on remand in Arohata Women's Prison before being granted bail.
When her case came before the court on July 29 - the day after 42-year-old Ms McPhee's bashed and bloodied body was discovered in her council flat - Ms Akurangi pleaded guilty to assault with intent to injure.
She was sentenced to 80 hours community work and nine months probation.
The witness said after she was bailed she had seen Ms McPhee who was staying with a mutual friend.
Ms McPhee apologised to Ms Akurangi for calling the police on her.
Their relationship was "OK" again after that but the witness never visited the Newtown bed-sit Ms McPhee moved into only weeks before she was murdered.
Ms Akurangi said she did not even know where her old friend was living or that their mutual friend had a key to the flat.
Cross examined by Crown counsel Grant Burston, she denied killing Ms McPhee or having anything to do with her murder.
The prosecution claims Haerewa was responsible for the violent death in the victim's own home on the night of July 22 last year and that he killed Ms McPhee with murderous intent.
Evidence was given that the accused's bloody fingerprints were found on a broken stool leg which had been used to beat her violently about the head and body in the passageway of the bed-sit.
Her blood was identified on his tracksuit pants and boots.
Haerewa is alleged to have left a note on the front door, which witnesses saw the next morning. It read: "Gone to Featherston with Hone. Back Tuesday."
The Crown says Haerewa put the security chain on the front door to delay the finding of the body.
After writing "Die you f nark" in ballpoint pen above the body and on top of the splattered blood on the passage wall, the accused allegedly left the murder scene through a back window, taking Ms McPhee's handbag.
"The evidence that he is the killer is simply overwhelming," Mr Burston told the jury.
The body was discovered when a friend forced the door about six days later.
Jurors had also heard how Haerewa and Ms McPhee had a volatile relationship. Each had spent time on the streets and both had problems with alcohol. She would kick him out of the flat when he had been using solvents.
For the defence, Mr Miller said possible motives for others to kill Allison McPhee were to remove her as the principal witness in a criminal trial, to settle old scores for things she may have done in the past, or that her murder was a "hit' because of a drug debt.
She was said to have owed money and regularly used cannabis.
- NZPA