Teller had arms raised before gunman fired

Bank teller John Vaughan had his hands raised in surrender when shot in the head by double-killer Ese Junior Falealii, security video footage shows.

In one frame Mr Vaughan, 43, is seen with his hands above his head in submission.

In the next, taken a few seconds later, he appears to be buckling and falling backwards.

In the next, four seconds later, he is lying on the floor dying.

A still from one of the surveillance cameras at the Mangere Bridge ASB was published in the Herald on May 16 last year, the day after the shooting, and Falealii's parents went to police with their suspicions that their son was the gunman.

Falealii is serving life for the murder of Mr Vaughan and the killing a week earlier of part-time pizza worker Marcus Doig.

Three men are accused in the High Court at Auckland of being parties to one or both murders. They are also accused, with a fourth man, of being involved in a number of robberies.

Tania Taua, a colleague of Mr Vaughan, gave harrowing evidence of the hold-up and shooting, which happened right beside her.

Crown prosecutor Christine Gordon advised her not to look at the video footage of Mr Vaughan being killed.

Ms Taua told the court that about lunchtime on that day, she and Mr Vaughan heard yelling and swearing by a gunman who was trying to get a receptionist to let him into the secure area of the bank where the tellers were.

Ms Taua said Mr Vaughan signalled to the gunman to go to the entry door, which Mr Vaughan opened.

"The gunman came in and told us he was going to shoot us in the head."

Ms Taua, who no longer works in banking, said bank staff had been trained to put their hands out in front of robbers palms up, not to look at them and to appear passive "so that it doesn't make them aggressive".

She said that the gunman gave Mr Vaughan a bag and told him he wanted all the money.

"He just kept saying, 'I want all the money. Give it all. I'm going to shoot youse in the head'."

Both tellers put money in the robber's bag.

"He was pointing the gun at our heads. He was swearing at us and he clicked the gun ... I just heard 'click, click'," Ms Taua told the court.

The robber seemed agitated and annoyed with Mr Vaughan.

"I don't think he was going fast enough putting the money in."

Because of the way Mr Vaughan had set up his cash drawer, it was difficult for him to get money out.

Ms Taua said the gunman kept telling Mr Vaughan to give her (Ms Taua) the bag but he did not.

"I think that really annoyed him."

Even though Ms Taua and Mr Vaughan had emptied the contents of their cash drawers into the robber's bag, the gunman was still swearing at Mr Vaughan and pointing the weapon at him.

"We were always told that usually when someone comes to rob a bank, they just take the money and they run, but he was still there, so I thought he wanted more money," Ms Taua said.

She turned away to try to get money from an absent teller's drawer when she heard a gunshot.

"I froze," she told Ms Gordon. "I just stood there. I could not believe it."

Mr Vaughan was lying on the ground gasping.

The gunman then told her to get on the floor.

"I tried to crawl under the counter ... I thought he was going to shoot me."

As she lay there for what seemed like an eternity, she said, she could see Mr Vaughan's feet shaking.

She called to see if he was okay, but he did not answer.

Eventually, a customer told her that the gunman had gone. She crawled over to Mr Vaughan and saw that he had a head wound.

Then she tried to make a 111 emergency call, but all the phones were blinking.

In cross-examination, Ms Taua told defence lawyer Chris Comeskey that the robber kept up a tirade of abuse during the robbery.

She told another defence lawyer, Steve Bonnar, that she and Mr Vaughan had co-operated fully.

Ms Taua told the judge that while the robber told them to hurry, he was not running, but kept walking back and forth.

"It felt like a lifetime."

A total of $5831 was stolen.

Joseph Sam Samoa, 28, of Mangere, and William Logan Johansson, 27, of Otara, are accused of being involved in the murder of Mr Doig and the attempted murder of the pizza parlour owner, John Wilfred Bell.

They are also accused, with Pago Savaiinaea, 27, of Otara, of the murder of Mr Vaughan.

Samoa faces five charges of aggravated robbery. Johansson faces 12 aggravated-robbery charges and Savaiinaea three.

A fourth man, Kenneth Edward Kitiseni, 33, of Manurewa, faces three aggravated-robbery counts.

Falealii will give evidence for the Crown next week.