Boy spoke of dropping killer concrete slab, say friends

The 8kg lump of concrete that killed car driver Christopher Currie.

A schoolboy confessed in the playground to dropping the concrete slab that killed a driver on an Auckland motorway, say his friends.

The boys gave evidence in court of a conversation on the high school playing fields with the 14-year-old who is charged with murdering Christopher Currie in August.

"I was the one that did it with the rock," the teen is alleged to have told a 14-year-old boy.

The witness and another student who gave evidence at the depositions hearing yesterday said the accused told them he felt "sad" that Mr Currie had died.

Questioned about why he threw the concrete, he said: "I don't know."

Mr Currie, 20, died when the 8kg piece of concrete was thrown from the Princes St bridge over the Southern Motorway at Otahuhu on August 19.

The accused boy, who cannot be identified and who is yet to enter a plea, appeared in the Manukau Youth Court in a hearing expected to finish tomorrow.

Police say he hid the rock in his clothing and after dropping it from the overbridge he ran away, but returned to see emergency services dealing with the carnage.

The teen has been held in Child, Youth and Family custody since his arrest on August 23.

Yesterday he sat next to his lawyer, Clare Bennett, occasionally writing on pieces of paper.

His parents sat in the back of the court and he was given permission to have supervised contact with them during the lunch break.

The boy is also charged with endangering transport, which the Crown says relates to the risk to the three passengers in the car, including Mr Currie's girlfriend.

The group were on their way to stay with Mr Currie's father on the North Shore.

Crown Solicitor Simon Moore said the passengers heard a loud bang and the shattering of glass. Mr Currie's girlfriend looked over to see him slumped in the driver's seat.

She noticed an injury to his jaw. His hands were lying limp at his side.

She grabbed the steering wheel as the car veered across motorway lanes. It crashed about 200m from the bridge.

Mr Moore said an autopsy found the concrete had struck Mr Currie in the jaw and chest. The impact fractured his sternum, forcing the bone into his chest and severing his heart. He would have died instantly.

Mr Moore said three local youths were identified as being in the area just before the crash. The accused was among them and had thrown the concrete, which he had picked up from a construction site beside the motorway.

The other two were close enough for at least one of them to have seen his actions.

A 13-year-old told the court the accused came to his home on the night of the accident and said he had "just chucked a rock off the bridge".

The following Monday, the concrete-throwing was a hot topic of conversation at the accused's high school, which cannot be identified.

Friends yesterday gave evidence of conversations with the teen that day.

A 14-year-old witness said he was sitting on a lower field with the accused when he confessed to throwing the concrete. "I said 'How do you feel about it?' [He replied], "Pretty much sad".

A 15-year-old girl said the accused told her he was in trouble.

"He said something like, 'What would you do if you knew who did it?' I asked him if he did it and he said 'No'.

"He told me he was on the bridge but I didn't hear him say he threw the rock off the bridge."