An 18-year-old has been charged with allegedly stabbing a dog-walker multiple times in Christchurch where the victim was left for about an hour before his family found him.
On Wednesday, police officers swooped on two homes on Corhampton St, Aranui, in connection to the assault. The properties are about 500m from Bexley Reserve, where the man was found critically injured on Monday morning.
On Wednesday evening, Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves confirmed an 18-year-old has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in relation to the assault. He will be appearing in the Christchurch District Court on Thursday.
A 23-year-old woman has been charged with accessory after the fact. She will appear at a later date.
Reeves said police began making inquiries in relation to the two properties earlier on Wednesday.
“Police would like to thank members of the public who have come forward to share valuable information.
“As the matter is now before the courts, police will not comment further.”
A small white car, similar in appearance to the one police have been seeking sightings of, could be seen at one of the addresses on Wednesday afternoon before it was towed away.
The victim is believed to have been stabbed multiple times and was found by family after his dog returned home.
A resident said she saw several police officers raiding the two properties on Wednesday afternoon. One police officer asked if she knew the people living in the addresses. She said she knew of them, but did not know them well.
Police said on Tuesday they were looking for two people of interest in connection to the stabbing, a man and a woman who were at the scene of the incident at the time.
On Wednesday, Reeves said police had spent time combing through CCTV footage to try to track where a white car of interest had gone following the incident. The vehicle was parked in the driveway of the Bexley Reserve entrance at the time of the stabbing.
“I would say that at the moment we have a lot of information coming in from the public so we’re working through all of that information to determine its relevance or significance to the investigation and obviously we have other general lines of inquiry that we’re following. We’re busy, we’ve got a lot of leads to follow up on.”
She said those involved would now know how serious it was.
“It is now time to come in and tell us what has happened so we can find some closure for this family and resolve this matter.
“I am absolutely certain that they would’ve spoken to family, they will have spoken to friends or someone’s going to recognise the description of the man and the woman and the car, and know who they are. We’re encouraging friends and family, any of those people to report through to us, they can do that anonymously.”
The man remains in critical condition at Christchurch Hospital.
“He has had a number of surgeries. He’s obviously a fighter, he’s doing well I guess in that regard but he’s not out of the woods,” Reeves said.
“His family are remarkable under the circumstances, they’re obviously very stressed and traumatised by what’s happened, but he’s got quite a lot of family up in the hospital at his bedside with him.”
The Herald earlier spoke with a local dog-walker who had left the house with her dog for her usual morning walk, shortly after 5.45am.
At the time, she said, no emergency service vehicles were in sight on Pages Rd - where the entrance to the reserve is.
Walking past the entrance, she saw a woman sitting next to a man lying on the ground, appearing to comfort him. Two dogs were in the car at that stage.
“She kept saying ‘it’s okay, it’s okay’, - initially I thought it was personal, so I planned on doing my walk which takes 15 minutes and checking on them when I got back,” she said.
By the time she returned, police and ambulance crew were at the scene of the incident and told her to immediately go home.