Eli Epiha has pleaded in charge to the homicide of Constable Matthew Hunt. Video and audio right here used to be shown to the jurors.
Video / Supplied
A West Auckland resident whose automotive was taken soon after the shootings of unarmed constables Matthew Hunt and David Goldfinch recalled to jurors how one of the officers ran to his driveway that morning, hiding in the back of a automobile.
“I looked into his eyes and he looked scared,” Marcus Tiatia mentioned of the officer at the Auckland High Court trial of Eli Bob Sauni Epiha and Natalie Jane Bracken.
“Did you assert anything to him?” Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey requested the witness.
“No,” he said.
“Did you be offering him any safe haven?” the prosecutor then asked.
“No,” he spoke back again.
Epiha pleaded accountable ultimate week to Constable Hunt’s homicide and to reckless using previous to the shooting, whilst fleeing the officials, that resulted in the harm of a bystander. But he has pleaded now not guilty to attempted homicide of Constable Goldfinch, who survived being hit via four bullets at the morning of 19 June 2020.
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Bracken is accused of being an adjunct after the truth to murder — the end result, prosecutors contend, of her serving to Epiha flee the neighbourhood after the shooting.
Bracken, who Tiatia known as “Nat”, had an on-again-off-again relationship with the witness’ older brother and had spent the evening at his house the evening prior to, he mentioned. But he didn’t see her that morning until listening to a crash and working outside, the place he witnessed the shooting, he mentioned.
Prosecutors asked Tiatia more than one occasions how Bracken ended up with the keys to his automobile. He said he didn’t know.
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“They [keys] can have been anywhere,” he said a number of instances, including later after prosecutors pressed the problem: “She ran in after me when I ran within. She just requested if I had my keys. I didn’t reply.”
Tiatia was once followed on the witness stand by means of his partner, who walked into the court crying.
“I saw a guy with a gun. He used to be shooting the gun,” she said, explaining that he had only one hand on the weapon as he fired. “He used to be looking to pull his pants up and shoot at the similar time.”
She dabbed a tissue at her eyes recalling seeing one of the constables mendacity immobile within the roadway. The gunshots, she stated, had been “ringing in my ear the entire morning”.
When asked how the gunman and Braken ended up with the keys to the car she shared with her partner, she additionally to start with stated she didn’t know the place the keys to the auto were.
“Can you lend a hand us with that,” the prosecutor requested back.
A long pause ensued.
“He pointed the gun at us,” she ultimately said. “She got them [the keys] from us.”
She later clarified on cross-examination that the gun wasn’t pointed without delay at her and her spouse nevertheless it was pointed of their common course.
“Uce, uce, take me,” she recalled the gunman calling out “to any one”.
“Those words don’t amount to a danger, do they?” Epiha’s attorney, Marcus Edgar, requested her.
She agreed they didn’t.
When wondered by way of Bracken’s legal professional, Adam Couchman, she said that her partner’s older brother is usually anti-police in his sentiments and that he called her on the police station as she spoke to authorities later that day. She didn’t mention that her automotive were taken till her second police statement, she also admitted.
Several eye-witnesses with no connections to both defendant additionally gave the impression visibly uncomfortable during the third day of the trial as they testified towards the 2, who sat subsequent to guards at once behind the witness stand.
One witness elected to use a display screen keeping apart him from the defendant. Another apologised for being so apprehensive and gave the impression to leap when he idea a lawyer was about to say his partner by name.
Their demeanour was a stark contrast to the best way Epiha was once described right away after the shootings — strolling down the residential Massey street as casually as if he was window shopping at the mall.
“She was once waving her arms around, seeking to get the guy’s consideration to apply her,” the second one witness of the day testified, appearing to check with Bracken. “He used to be flippantly strolling alongside. It was only a informal stroll, like you do walking across the mall.”
The final witness of the day also agreed that the gunman seemed surprisingly calm immediately after the shooting.
That witness, who is a cousin of the bystander injured via Epiha’s automotive, said he watched the gunman take intention and shoot in opposition to the police vehicle.
“The officer was once looking to save himself with his hand in front of his face,” the witness stated, explaining that he then ran inside of.
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