Guilty verdicts at Rangiora murder trial
Guilty verdicts on murder and wounding charges have been delivered against both men involved in a fatal drugs robbery or burglary that went wrong at Rangiora a year ago.
The jury spent about 3hrs 30min deliberating on the eighth day of the trial of Jason William Baker, 40, of Linwood, and Shaun Robert Murray Innes, 37, of Rakaia.
Justice Rachel Dunningham remanded both men for sentencing on November 7, and called for pre-sentence reports.
At the request of counsel for Baker, she did not enter convictions because that would have put him into the general prison population and meant an end to the drug and alcohol rehabilitation course he has been doing. He has completed two of the three stages.
Nor did the judge read the men first-strike warnings under the three-strikes legislation that imposes heavier sentences on repeat violent offenders.
That will all be done at the November sentencing in the High Court at Christchurch.
Baker and Innes were both found guilty of murdering Tony John Lochhead and wounding his brother Peter Graham Lochhead with intent to commit aggravated robbery. The prosecution said Baker did the stabbing, while Innes was charged as a party to the offending.
Crown prosecutors Pip Currie and Anselm Williams alleged it was a drugs-robbery-gone wrong. They said Innes had been tasked with knocking on the door of the Lochheads’ property at White Street Rangiora to get them outside, where Baker was hiding in the bushes and armed with a hunting knife.
In the fracas that then took place around the doorway, Peter Lochhead received multiple stab wounds and Tony Lochhead received a fatal wound to the neck.
Baker’s defence team urged the jury to return a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder, because his judgment and his consideration of the consequences had been affected by the cocktail of drugs and alcohol he had taken.
Innes’ defence was that he had withdrawn from whatever the plan there may have been, and was already some distance away when the violence occurred.
The men stood impassively in the dock as the verdicts were delivered. Baker blew a kiss to someone in the public gallery as he was taken back to the cells for delivery to the prison for a mandatory life sentence.
Category: News
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