Witness tells of chasing Ashburton gunman
A WINZ client got within a metre of the Ashburton gunman as he tried to get away and rattled him so much he dropped his bicycle helmet – which has provided evidence for the High Court trial.
David William Cooze told of shouting abuse at the gunman and approaching him as he unlocked his bike from a post near the Ashburton WINZ office.
He said: “He showed me the butt of the gun. He was warning me that he would shoot me if I didn’t back off.”
Mr Cooze did walk back, but returned across the road when he saw the man’s hands weren’t near his gun. He then got within a metre of him.
“He started freaking out. I rattled him so much that he dropped his helmet and bike lock on the ground.” The man had managed to get the helmet on his head but could not do it up because of the beanie he was wearing.
“He could not clip it and it fell off his head,” he said.
The Crown has said on the trial’s first day that DNA testing of the helmet linked it to Russell John Tully, who is accused of being the gunman.
Mr Cooze said he went to the WINZ office to drop in a medical certificate. He was standing at the reception desk when someone came from the side, wearing a balaclava, and he then saw a gun.
The gunman had white skin visible through the balaclava. He raised the gun at the receptionist, Peggy Noble, and fired and he felt a slap on his face. He saw Mrs Noble “blown out of her chair”.
The person turned and went for the next WINZ worker. “I knew I had to get out of there,” he said. He pushed the woman behind him in the queue towards the door, and grabbed the security guard by arm.
As he was going out the door he heard a second shot. “I knew another person had been shot.”
He then had the confrontation when he saw the gunman leave the building.
Jane Diana Hayman, of Ashburton, a WINZ case manager, said she was working in the office on Monday, September 1, 2014, when she heard a very loud noise from the reception area. She saw a man wearing dark clothing and a balaclava, and holding a gun.
“I thought he might be going to run out, but then I saw him reload and knew he was just going to come around and shoot all of us, so I got up and left.” He used a pump action to reload the weapon.
As she ran out, she saw the gunman standing and firing a second shot. She ran into a hallway and out through a door into a carpark, and then across the road to a medical centre where she asked the receptionist to ring the police.
Tully, 49, who is not in court for the three week trial before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury, faces two charges of murdering WINZ staff members and attempting to murder two others, as well as charges of setting a man trap — a wire stretched between two trees – and unlawful possession of two shotguns.
Peggy Turuhira Noble and Susan Leigh Cleveland were killed, and Tully faces charges of attempting to murder Lindy Curtis and Kim Elizabeth Adams.
Tully was not in court as the charges were read last week, but is deemed to have pleaded not guilty. He has no lawyer in court, but James Rapley and Phil Shamy are acting as amicus curiae (friends of the court).
[Afternoon update] A van driver told of chasing the gunman, who rode on his bike to the Ashburton River area, where he could not follow.
Another witness, Mervyn Walter Gilbert, told of going for a run with a friend along a track near the river. He saw a cyclist in a hurry, wearing dark clothing, and with a backpack on. He and his friend then encountered armed police and told them the direction where they had seen the cyclist.
The other runner, Bruce Edward Henderson, who separated from Mr Gilbert for a time, said the cyclist had a firearm across the handlebars as he went past him. Further along the track, he noticed a thin piece of wire stretched across the track about nose-height. He undid an end of it. He later took the police to where the wire was.
The trial is continuing.
Category: News
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