Bell's triple-killing accomplice bids for parole

Darnell Kere Tupe. Photo / Kenny Rodger

A man involved in the triple killing at the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA will appear before the Parole Board in a bid for freedom.

Darnell Kere Tupe, now 30, drove William Bell to the RSA on December 8, 2001, and was waiting outside while Bell went in to rob it.

But Bell carried out a massacre in which he shot dead club member Wayne Johnson, 56, and beat to death with a shotgun butt club president William Absolum, 63, and cleaner Mary Hobson.

Bell, now serving 30 years for the murders, also beat the club's accountant, Susan Couch, so badly she lost 80 per cent of her blood and was left brain damaged.

Tupe, who fled the scene after waiting outside for 45 minutes, was jailed for 12 years, with a seven-year minimum non-parole period, in 2003 for the manslaughter of Mr Absolum, Mr Johnson and Ms Hobson.

The Sunday News reported that Tupe would this month front the Parole Board, which has said it considers it "important that Mr Tupe has a careful and structured reintroduction to the community".

Tupe has been denied parole on two previous occasions - in 2008 and in November last year.

The board said he was drug free, had done programmes to better himself and was a prominent member of the Maori Focus Unit.

The Parole Board's report revealed Tupe said he had started a relationship with a woman in 2003 while behind bars. She visited him in jail every Sunday.

The woman told the board how much she loved Tupe and how she looked beyond his offending.

"At the same time she indicated that she was very firm about the standards of conduct she expected him to observe, indicating that if he began offending, she would advise the police."

- NZPA