Abbott's colleague tells court he would have done the same

12.00pm

A former colleague of Waitara Senior Constable Keith Abbott told a jury today he would have acted in the same manner as Abbott did when he shot Steven Wallace.

Constable Abbott is standing trial in the High Court at Wellington for the murder of Wallace.The private prosecution case taken by the Wallace family is the first of its type in the country.

Prosecution witness Detective Keith Borrell, under cross-examination from defence counsel Susan Hughes, said Abbott had acted appropriately in the circumstances.

"I wouldn't have probably done it any other way than the way it was done.

"In the circumstances he acted appropriately at the time to prevent further damage to persons or property."

In a private prosecution taken by Mr Wallace's family, Abbott, 48, has pleaded not guilty to alternative charges of murder and manslaughter of Mr Wallace, 23.

Abbott has claimed he was acting in self-defence when he shot dead Mr Wallace in Waitara on April 30, 2000 after the young man was found smashing windows along McLean St using a golf club and baseball bat.

Today, the jury was shown a video of police procedures on how to use pepper spray on an offender.

In the video it was discussed how the spray was effective up to only 3.5m and how it was not always effective on every person.

Ms Hughes said the defence case was that Mr Wallace was shot at between 4m to 5m from Abbott.

"The defence also says that an offender can cover five metres in 0.5 seconds and that it could take 0.5 seconds to pull the trigger... therefore at 5 metres there is 1 second to respond to the threat," she said.

She asked Mr Borrell whether he agreed to those figures from his experience, and he did.

Mr Borrell had worked with Abbott both in New Plymouth and Waitara and regarded him as "a very good police officer".

- NZPA