Corey Wade O'Connell of Maromaku pleaded not guilty to all charges and elected a jury trial.
Photo / Imran Ali
Corey Wade O'Connell of Maromaku pleaded not guilty to all charges and elected a jury trial.
Photo / Imran Ali
A Northlander facing a number of serious charges, including shooting at a police officer and kidnapping, will spend the festive season on remand.
Corey O'Connell, 31, was arrested following a search warrant police carried out at an address in Maromaku, south of Kawakawa, on Friday morning when they were fired at.
No one was hurt.
Officers had visited the property to investigate a kidnapping and assault that happened on November 29. The victim received non-life threatening injuries in the assault.
O'Connell is facing two charges of kidnapping, two of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, three of unlawfully possessing a firearm, and a single charge of using a firearm against law enforcement.
The most serious charge — discharging a firearm against a police officer— carries a maximum term of 14 years in prison.
Name suppression lapsed when he made a brief appearance yesterday before Judge John McDonald in the Kaikohe District Court where he entered not guilty pleas to all charges and elected trial by jury.
Duty lawyer Leon Penney asked the judge for interim name suppression to continue until full disclosures have been provided by police but Judge McDonald declined the request.
He was remanded in custody for a case review on March 9, 2021.
Meanwhile, Friday's incident in Maromaku was the fifth where officers have been fired at in Northland in less than four months.
In early September, several gunshots were fired at officers during a police pursuit that started in Otangarei, carried on to Onerahi, then to Tarewa Rd where the car being chased stopped and two people were arrested.
A female police officer wasn't hurt when she was fired at by two men in October.
A female officer was in this patrol car when it was shot at near Kerikeri.
Photo / Supplied
The patrol car windscreen was peppered with shotgun pellets on Puketona Rd, off State Highway 10, just after 4am on October 27.
The incidents sparked a major police operation and a search by members of the Armed Offenders Squad at a series of properties on Matauri Bay Rd that were connected to the abduction.
During the same night ram-raids were carried out at a Four Square in Paihia and a dairy in Moerewa. It is not yet known if those raids were related to the other crimes.
The first was in Otangarei where a sole police officer was allegedly shot at by a male driver who was later arrested, together with a female.
Their cases are before the court.
Then at Tangowahine two weeks ago, a man wanted on cannabis and firearms' charges allegedly shot at a police dog before being shot at three times by police.
