Bairds Rd murder trial: Ōtara shooting was nearly double-homicide, survivor says

Photo - File /Wayne Drought/ NZPA

A man who was shot in the stomach by a stranger outside his South Auckland home last year stood in the witness stand — addressing a man who didn't pull the trigger but is accused of having orchestrated the situation.

"This hurts, bro," Joseph Ngamu said to former co-worker Timothy Kahurangi Huriwaka, on trial as a result of Ngamu's gunshot wound and another man's murder, which occurred moments apart.

Gunman Michael Robinson has previously pleaded guilty to the charges. Huriwaka, who was also at the Ōtara home on 28 February 2020, is accused of having a grudge against Ngamu's brother that sparked the confrontation. He is charged as a party.

Ngamu told jurors he bought a box of Flame beer after work that Friday afternoon and began drinking in his shed. Huriwaka, he said, showed up at his home twice that day. It was the second visit, around 11pm, when Huriwaka brought Robinson with him and trouble began.

Robinson, who Ngamu had never met before, asked for a drink, he recalled. But as Ngamu, who described himself as "a bit tiddly", led him on to the property, the stranger pulled out a gun and pointed it at his chest, he said.

"I just pulled it down like that, man, and pow!" Ngamu said, recalling the wound to his stomach. "I've never been shot in my life. I might have been pissed but I didn't want to die."

It was after the first shot that another man, who has name suppression, ran towards the melee and was killed by Robinson, Crown prosecutor David Stevens told jurors on Monday as the trial began.

Prosecutors allege Huriwaka actually went to the home that night to intimidate Ngamu's brother for having reported Huriwaka to police a year earlier on an unrelated matter. Huriwaka had been out of jail about 10 days when he approached the brothers' Bairds Rd home, they said.

Bruce Lee Ngamu took the witness stand directly after his brother. He told jurors he was caught off guard when Huriwaka showed up the first time and asked if he had made a report to police.

"I thought it a bit strange...bringing up an incident from something I really wasn't quite ready for," he said, explaining that the defendant left a short time later. "It was more of a stunt than anything."

Bruce Lee Ngamu said he was washing dishes late that night when the defendant showed up the second time — this time with a stranger in tow. He stood at the gate, talking with Huriwaka as the stranger followed brother Joseph Ngamu to get a drink, he said. Huriwaka was stayed with him and was "pretty quiet", he said, up until the point the two heard his brother scream in pain.

Defence lawyer Shane Cassidy, who has suggested that his client had no idea a shooting was going to occur and shouldn't be held responsible, quizzed Bruce Lee Ngamu about the suddenness of the violence.

"It just went to hell in a handbasket very quick, didn't it?" he asked.

"Yes, it did," Bruce Lee Ngamu replied.

Cassidy pursued a similar line of cross-examination with a teen, underage at the time of the shooting, who travelled to the Ngamu home with Huriwaka and Robinson. The teen has received immunity in exchange for co-operating with authorities.

After the shooting, as they quickly left the Bairds Rd house, Huriwaka seemed as confused as he was, the teen said.

"Everybody was panicking and everybody looked confused except for Mikey (Robinson)," he said. "That's how it felt.

"It was awkward in the car."

The trial before Justice Gerard van Bohemen continues.