July 27, 2010

Fatal fracas described at murder trial

Timothy Constable murder trial, Day 2. By Anne Clarkson

The fatal fracas in which Timothy John Constable was beaten, stabbed, and killed has been described by Mr Constable’s teenage girlfriend, who was in the midst of it, at a High Court murder trial in Christchurch.

The events of August 6 and 7, 2009, when Mr Constable was killed in Todd Avenue, Burnside, were recounted by 18-year-old Gisinda Nancy Marie Coombs on the second day of the trial before Justice Lester Chisholm and a jury.

Adam Robert Gempton, 21, Steven Wayne Bright, 26, and Levi Michael Coombs, 18, are charged with murder, while Shaharna Margaret Hickey, 23, and Shahana Mikena Coombs, 21, are charged with assault. They deny all charges.

Gisinda Coombs said she had been texting and phoning Mr Constable all evening, with some of the texts being abusive, some not answered, and being hung up on on the landline. She was using other people’s cellphones and the landline in the house to contact him.

She said she did not realise that other people in the house were also texting him.

She asked him to pick her up so that she could have a talk to him, and got a call to say he was on his way.

When she left the house to meet him, Mr Constable was standing on the end of the driveway with a gun. She said she couldn’t see anyone else and told him to put the gun away and she would go with him.

Her sister, Shahana Coombs, and Bright came out of the house and Mr Constable and Bright had a fist fight.

Her sister tried to stop it, but Mr Constable grabbed her and hit her in the eye, and she ended up lying on the ground, Gisinda Coombs said.

Levi Coombs and Hickey arrived, and she said she screamed at Mr Constable to get in the car and told everyone to leave him alone.

Mr Constable picked her up and tried to put her in the car, and she ended up on his lap. Her sister was trying to get her out of the car, and some of the punching she was doing was landing on her.

She received a bite mark on her right arm from Mr Constable. He latched onto her arm and wouldn’t let it go, she said.

She saw Mr Constable get hit on the head with a wooden object when she was still on his knee. She noticed blood rushing down his face.

When they both lost their balance and fell out of the car, she was next to him in the gutter.

He was lying flat on his back, while she was on her knees, and she ended up sitting on the ground holding him. He didn’t move or say anything, she said.

Bright booted him in the head and Mr Constable’s father, who had arrived in the car with him, said he was dead. Bright tried to resuscitate him with CPR.

Gisinda Coombs said she did not see Mr Coombs stabbed at any stage, but when he was lying on the ground the knife was next to him. She picked it up and threw it under the car.

A young visitor to the house, whose name is suppressed because of his age, called 111, and the recording of it was played in court.

On the recording, he tells police there is a man with a gun who is going to shoot them and then there is a lot of shouting in the background. Later he says, “He is on the ground, like knocked out.”

“I think he is dying, we need an ambulance quick. People are trying to do CPR on him,” he says.

Cross-examination will continue tomorrow in the trial which is expected to last four weeks.