Timings crucial in murder evidence, says defence

Timings are crucial to Shaun Robert Murray Innes’ claim that he was not present when the fatal stabbing was delivered in what has been described as a Rangiora drugs robbery, his defence team says.

Defence counsel Tony Garrett told the jury in the Christchurch High Court trial that the evidence showed he had withdrawn from the alleged drugs robbery and was some distance away when Tony John Lochhead was killed.

The Crown says that Jason William Baker, 40, of Linwood, was the principal offender, wielding the hunting knife that stabbed Tony Lochhead in the neck and wounded his brother Peter Graham Lochhead. Innes has been charged as a party to both offences.

Innes’ defence team called a witness, a private investigator, to give the timings for brisk jog-walks between the Lochhead’s White Street house to the Caltex Service Station in Rangiora’s High Street where Innes can be seen on the security camera video at 9.15pm.

The accuracy of the time on the video has not been checked because police did not originally identify the person on the video as being Innes.

The investigator showed the journey on foot took 4min 40sec or 4min 35sec depending on the route. He accepted that two police officers had tried running the 600m route and covered it in 2min 44sec and 2min 49sec. Mr Garrett said the security video did not show Innes as being out of breath.

Mr Garrett said a Crown witness who was a neighbour, a woman who could be regarded as a reliable witness, had given evidence that put the timing of the fatal stabbing at the Lochheads’ property, about 9.19pm or 9.20pm.

“Shaun Innes was miles away when the fatal wound was inflicted,” Mr Garrett told the jury. “These timings are crucial to your deliberations.”

The investigator was the only witness for the defence and the trial then moved on to closing addresses.

Prosecutor Pip Currie said the Crown case was that Innes was still a party to the offences. He had gone to the property with a plan and by the time he left the scene he had already completed his part of the plan – knocking on the door and getting it open.

She said the Lochhead brothers had not been the aggressors and any suggestion of self-defence for Baker was rubbish. She dismissed the defence claim that Baker was so “out of it” on a cocktail of alcohol and drugs that he was not capable of forming the necessary intent for murder.

She pointed out that next morning, Baker had texted to someone: “Just f–d up so bad. Don’t want to get into it right now. It’s not funny.”

“The Crown says both are guilty of murder. They went out to do a robbery, and Tony Lochhead was killed,” she said.

Afternoon update:

In the closing address for Innes, defence counsel Michael Knowles accused the Crown of “seeking wide, sweeping vengeance against Mr Innes”, a man who did not like violence, ran away, and wanted nothing to do with it.

He told the jury they could not be sure what the “common purpose” was for Baker and Innes. It may have been to get drugs, or to see if people were home before burgling the property.

“It was a botch of a plan. Shaun Innes deliberately finished it by his actions in running away. Mr Innes withdrew. He left Baker in a completely impossible position, one against two.”

The defence says Innes was some distance away by the time the violence occurred.

Defence counsel for Baker, Gerald Nation, said Baker had to accept the jury would be satisfied that he was holding the knife at the time of the wounding and the killing. He said it was not being claimed that Baker was acting reasonably in self-defence or that he was so much under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and alcohol that he was incapable of knowing what he was doing or forming the intent for murder.

But he asked the jury to consider that Baker’s intake of drugs and alcohol was not irrelevant.

“Look at what was in his mind when the crucial blows were struck in the context of this whole horrible incident,” he said. “He was not completely incapable of knowing what he was doing, but it did affect his judgment and his ability to consider the consequences of using the knife might be.”

He believed there had been a significant change in the Crown’s position. They were now willing to accept that the pair may have gone to the Lochheads to commit a burglary to get drugs, rather than their original theory of a robbery and the violence involved with that.

He urged the jury to return a verdict of manslaughter for Baker.

Justice Rachel Dunningham will deliver her summing up tomorrow morning, before the jury begins considering its verdict.

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