34-month sentence for fatal drugs raid

A Rakaia man has been sent back to jail for his role as “bait” in a drugs raid that went wildly and fatally wrong.

Shaun Robert Murray Innes, 39, has already served two years in jail on remand for murder, and after his conviction and sentence in the High Court at Christchurch.

Since then, his conviction has been quashed and a retrial ordered but Innes pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter of Tony Lochhead at Rangiora in September 2013.

He was before Justice Cameron Mander in the High Court today for his manslaughter sentencing, where a term of two years’ ten months’ jail was imposed.

It means that Innes will be eligible for parole almost immediately, but his release will be decided at a hearing of the Parole Board which will consider his case, his rehabilitation, and impose post-release conditions. He should be released within a few months.

Innes teamed up with Jason William Baker, now aged 42 and serving a life term for murder, for the raid on a Rangiora home occupied by Tony Lochhead and his brother Peter.

The court accepted that the plan had been for a burglary, or possibly a confrontation if there were people at home. But Innes knew that Baker was armed with a hunting knife, and Justice Mander said he knew that there was a possibility of violence involving Baker who was “loaded with alcohol and drugs”.

The judge told Innes: “You must have known of the risk that violence would be resorted to by Baker. You knew he was an erratic and quite unreliable man who was armed with a knife.”

Innes knocked on the door of the house, mumbled incoherently when he was let inside, and then went outside to lure the brothers into the driveway where Baker was hiding in the bushes. Innes then left the scene while Baker attacked and there was an argument and struggle in the doorway in which Tony Lochhead was fatally stabbed in the chest, and Peter Lochhead also received injuries.

Justice Mander said members of the Lochhead family had spoken to the court with “commendable insight” into Innes’ need to commit to change and end his previously destructive lifestyle. He has been undergoing rehabilitation.

In imposing sentence, he took into account Innes’ remorse, his guilty plea, and his efforts for rehabilitation for a drug addiction Innes said arose from painkillers he was given after receiving a head injury in 1994.

Crown prosecutor Anselm Williams said Innes had not been the person who had brought the knife to the scene, or wielded the knife, and the plan the pair were engaged in did not require actual violence. However, a burglary or robbery had been planned and Innes had known that violence was a possibility.

The Crown also accepted that Innes had left the scene before the fatal stabbing occurred.

Defence counsel Jonathan Eaton QC said it had been “incredibly frustrating” for Innes, that Baker had continued with his rampage, even after the scheme had gone wrong. When Innes left the scene, he had no knowledge that one man would be wounded and another fatally stabbed.

He had been wrongly convicted of murder, which led to the retrial being ordered, but had turned his life around by doing drug rehabilitation programmes in prison, and rebuilding connections with his partner and family once he was released on strict electronically monitored bail.

He said Innes had a criminal history of dishonesty and driving offences and when he was 19 he was seriously injured in a car accident which left him with a brain injury and 35 percent permanent impairment.

He had an addiction to opiate drugs and had been on the methadone programme for a time. He had come off the programme in 2013 and begun associating with people in the drug scene, which was where he met Baker.

He said Innes had always been acutely aware of the loss to the Lochhead family, and had hoped that he could meet them at a restorative justice conference.

The family, which spoke of their loss and trauma from the incident, had not wished to have the meeting. One member told the court that the ordering of a retrial for Innes had been “a kick in the guts”.

Tags: drugs, manslaughter, murder

Category: Focus