Wrong verdict reading appeal dismissed

A jury foreman mistakingly told two men they were not guilty of all the charges they faced. File photo / NZ Herald

Two men have lost their bid to be cleared of attacking a kebab shop owner after the jury foreman wrongly acquitted them.

Augustus Ah Chong and Kunal Reddy were initially told by the jury foreman that they were not guilty on all of the charges they faced following the brutal bashing of Bryan Johnson on Auckland's North Shore in August 2008.

But after murmurings from other jurors, one of whom said "what about sheet six", the foreman said he had made an error and the judge, Justice Helen Winkelmann, told them to retire to ensure the correct verdicts were read out.

The revised verdicts, changed three of the five verdicts from not guilty to guilty, convicting Ah Chong on charges of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and one count of aggravated robbery, and Reddy on a charge of being an accessory after the fact.

Ah Chong and Reddy appealed, one of the grounds being that the only verdict which could be changed was Ah Chong's charge of aggravated robbery, as it was the only one on sheet six.

The three Court of Appeal judges in a decision released today said there was no doubt the turnaround in verdicts was dramatic but the jury had not been discharged.

Ah Chong did have his aggravated robbery conviction dismissed, on the grounds that it was incorrectly allowed to be laid at trial when the Crown could easily have done so beforehand and that it was inconsistent with his acquittal on another aggravated robbery charge.

However, his jail term of 4-1/2 years was not reduced as the charge of intentionally causing harm to the kebab shop owner was the lead charge.

Reddy lost his appeal on his conviction on the accessory charge, but his sentence was reduced from eight months imprisonment to two months.

Mr Johnson spent four months in hospital after he was knocked unconscious and suffered multiple facial injuries that left him unable to taste or smell.

Ah Chong, along with two other attackers, were paid by Mr Johnson's employee Tania Aziz, who wanted to take over the lease of the business. Six people were eventually convicted over the attack.

- NZPA