Christopher Heenan in the High Court at Rotorua yesterday. Photo/Stephen Parker
Christopher Heenan in the High Court at Rotorua yesterday. Photo/Stephen Parker
A retrial is under way for a Rotorua man accused of stabbing his drinking partner to death in Konene St more than six years ago.
Christopher Allan Heenan, now 54, went on trial in the High Court at Rotorua yesterday charged with the murder of 36-year-old Raukawa Newton on October11, 2007.
In his opening remarks, Justice Raynor Asher told the jury the case was a retrial but said they should not speculate on why or how and should not make their own investigations into the case.
"What happened in that [first] trial is irrelevant," he said.
In her opening statement, Rotorua Crown solicitor Amanda Gordon told the jury Heenan and Mr Newton, who suffered from bipolar disorder, were drinking that night at Heenan's Konene St, Rotorua, house.
She said the Crown alleged Heenan approached Mr Newton from behind and stabbed him with either a large carving knife, a Leatherman tool or both when Mr Newton began "conjuring up gods" and "calling his warriors from the heavens and the eighth plane".
Mr Newton's aorta was severed and he would have died within as little as 30 seconds, she said.
Ms Gordon said Heenan then jabbed himself with a knife, inflicting six superficial wounds to his abdomen and one to his arm, in an attempt to make it look as if he had acted in self-defence.
She said in the months following Mr Newton's death, Heenan gave people different accounts of that night, saying he didn't remember what happened, that Mr Newton had stabbed him first or that there was a third person involved.
Ms Gordon said Heenan admitted to a man in January 2008 he had "killed the f****** n***** and he was proud of it".
He told the man he had delivered a "kill shot" to Mr Newton and the story about a third person was "just a story for the pigs [police]".
The man, whose identity has been suppressed, will give evidence for the Crown during the trial.
Ms Gordon said the issues were whether Heenan acted in self-defence and, if not, whether he had murderous intent. She said forensic evidence from the scene would show Mr Newton did not attack Heenan and Heenan's wounds had been self-inflicted.
"I will be asking you to follow the blood because if you do that, if you follow the blood, you will be able to answer ... who stabbed who first."
Defence lawyer Simon Lance chose not to make an opening statement yesterday.
