Shot cop 'thought he was a goner'

Constable Jeremy Snow in court today. Photo / NZPA

A police officer shot by a man high on methamphetamine in south Auckland in December 2009 thought the shooter was going to "execute me and finish me off", the constable told a jury today.

Neshanderan Rajgopaul, 29, is on trial in the High Court at Auckland for the attempted murder of Constable Jeremy Snow in Papatoetoe.

When Mr Snow and his partner stopped to check a car in a driveway of a house they believed was being broken into, Mr Snow was shot four times, three bullets penetrating his body, one hitting a major blood vessel in his leg.

He was rescued by armed police as he came close to dying from blood loss.

Mr Snow's voice wavered as he described to the jury how it took him a moment to realise what had happened. He returned to work last week for the first time since the shooting.

"So many thoughts were going through my mind. It seemed so unreal," he said.

"I was losing a lot of blood from my left leg and I was finding it hard to breathe."

After being shot four times, Mr Snow said he saw the shooter reappear.

"At that moment I feared he was coming back to execute me and finish me off," he told the jury.

But to Mr Snow's relief, the man climbed over a fence and ran away.

Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery asked Mr Snow to identify whether the man in the dock - Rajgopaul - was the same man who fired the shots.

Mr Snow agreed Rajgopaul was the shooter, and said he saw him swivel round, dropping to one knee, before he drew a pistol and pointed it at him, then started firing.

"I was looking directly at him and saw the flash of the barrel.

"I remember being on the ground. Time slowed down and sped up at the same time," Mr Snow said.

He heard his colleague, Constable Robert Cato, making a call to police communications, with "immense fear and panic in his voice".

Mr Cato told the court today he heard a series of bangs.

"I initially thought the bangs were fireworks but I heard Jeremy screaming and quickly ruled that out," he told the jury.

Less than 10 seconds later there was a second volley of shots, he said.

He sent a radio message to police communications that an officer was down. But his emergency call did not get through straight away because a communications operator was giving a "long-winded" description to his sergeant on their progress leading up to the shooting.

Mr Cato retreated and saw a person coming toward him from where he'd seen Mr Snow's torchlight in the darkness.

"I believed he'd shot Jeremy and he was coming for me," Mr Cato said.

"I felt like I was running for my life. I tried to find an address, a safe haven, to get off the street."

Earlier today, defence counsel Ron Mansfield told the jury Rajgopaul was not the shooter, it was his friend Darrin Court, who was also at the house that night.

"Don't be lulled into a false sense of security that this case is straightforward. This case is far from clear cut," he said.

The Crown had brushed over details of the movements of Mr Court and his role, he told the court.

Mr Court was high on methamphetamine and feared being arrested. He was also hiding in the bushes near Rajgopaul but was not seen by Mr Snow.

Mr Court has admitted he was at the scene when Mr Snow was shot but denied being the shooter, Mr Mansfield said.

As well as the attempted murder charge, Rajgopaul faces one of threatening to kill, one of firing a weapon with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, four of unlawfully possessing a firearm, and one each of possessing a class A drug for supply and receiving stolen property.

He also faces two charges of assault using a firearm as a weapon relating to incidents between November and December 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all 11 charges before the jury of six men and six women.

The trial is set down for three weeks.

- NZPA