Twists and turns in firearms trial
A Yaldhurst man grabbed in a pre-dawn police raid has asked a judge to accept that a rifle found in a woodpile at his address may have been hidden there by a man who later shot him.
The three-hour Christchurch District Court trial of Dean Walter Louis was packed with twists and turns before Judge David Saunders delivered his verdict.
Louis, 30, began the trial denying unlawful possession of two rifles found at the Yaldhurst Road property in the police raid at 6am on April 6, 2016, and obstructing the police by not giving himself up when they surrounded the house, announced their presence, and demanded he come out.
Prosecutor Aja Trinder said the police were executing a search warrant looking for illegal firearms when they carried out the raid.
Police witnesses said they arrived outside the rural house with a police car in the driveway using its lights and siren. A dog rushed out at a police dog and latched onto its neck. The dog was shot before it did any serious injury to the police dog.
Dean Louis’ parents and partner came out of the house but an hour of appeals, including using a karaoke speaker, failed to get him to come out. Stun grenades were set off. After about an hour, an Armed Offenders Squad officer spotted him hiding in the bushes in a treeline behind the house.
Police found a Lee-Enfield Mk 1 rifle under the couch in the house. It had no bolt and was rusty, but the police were able to fire it using a replacement bolt.
A Norinco .22 rifle was found in a wood pile 10m to 15m from where Louis was found hiding.
He said he hid because he did not know it was the police who had arrived, and then when he worked that out, he decided it was best to keep hiding because an armed officer was standing right over him in the darkness. He had already heard shooting when the dog was killed.
After an adjournment, Louis changed his plea to guilty for possession of the old rifle found in the house. He said he had found it stored among the relics of his grandfather’s war service and brought it into the house. It had been slipped under the sofa when the property went up for sale.
But he said he had no knowledge of the rifle found in the wood pile and defence counsel Josh Lucas suggested it could have been hidden there by 33-year-old Oxford contractor David John Hunter.
Hunter had done some work for the family and got permission to leave a truck and a digger on the property, he said. By April, he was not welcome there because of damage and tools being stolen, said Louis. They weren’t mates.
Louis’ mother, Annette Louis, gave evidence of a firearm incident involving Hunter before April, and said she had found what appeared to be a firearm in the back of his truck at the property. She had phoned the police and they took it away.
She described the morning of the police raid in April. “We were taken out at gunpoint with our hands over our head. It was the worst experience I have ever had in my life. I thought it was disgraceful.”
In July, Hunter came to the property with a .22 rifle and fired two shots, wounding Dean Louis in the thigh. Hunter alleged at his sentencing that Louis had pulled out a pistol and he had acted in self-defence.
Hunter admitted a charge of wounding with reckless disregard for safety and was jailed for one year seven months in November.
Judge Saunders ruled that Dean Louis must have been aware it was the police who had arrived, and not some group of burglars, so he convicted him of obstruction. But he said he was satisfied that the house’s occupants “did not have knowledge or possession” of the rifle found in the woodpile.
“The whole circumstances surrounding how that rifle came to be there are quite murky,” said the judge.
He dismissed that charge but convicted Louis of unlawful possession of the rifle found inside, obstructing the police, and a breach of bail when he failed to attend court last year. He sentenced him to 100 hours of community work. The firearms will be destroyed.
Category: Focus
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