The young man was allegedly locked in a dog kennel after being held at gunpoint by a man who believed he had stolen his cannabis.
The young man was allegedly locked in a dog kennel after being held at gunpoint by a man who believed he had stolen his cannabis.
A young man who was accused of stealing a grower’s cannabis was held at gunpoint and forced into a dog kennel where he was trapped on his hands and knees, fearing for his life.
That’s the case that’s been put to a jury at the Christchurch District Court today.
The 47-year-old man behind the alleged kidnapping is said to have “jumped out” at the young man who was walking near his Okuku property. He pointed a gun at him before firing a shot at two people on a quad bike nearby in April last year.
Crown prosecutor Patrick Brand said the man was running a cannabis operation and had two plots, one over the fence from his property near Okuku River and the other close by. In the lead-up to the alleged kidnapping, some of his cannabis had gone missing.
Brand told the jury a woman and her daughter and boyfriend lived at the neighbouring property. The woman also had a second daughter who lived at a different address, but would visit her often with her boyfriend.
On April 12, the second daughter visited her mother at the Okuku property with her boyfriend.
Brand said the couple were aware the man was growing cannabis at his nearby property, and took some of it on the way back from a walk.
The next day between 5pm and 7.30pm, the first daughter’s boyfriend, who lived nearby, was walking along the riverbank when he was confronted by the man who allegedly “jumped out” at him, wearing camouflage and a black face mask.
Brand said the man pointed a gun at the boyfriend and told him to get down on the ground.
The man's trial began on Monday at Christchurch District Court before a jury and Judge Paul Kellar. Photo / George Heard
“I got [such] a massive fright that I ended up pissing myself,” the boyfriend said while he was giving evidence, with questioning led by Crown prosecutor John Whitcombe.
During this time, another man and his grandson were out hunting on their quad bike. The man saw them and believed them to be working with the boyfriend to steal his cannabis, so raised his rifle and allegedly shot at them once.
The shot missed the pair on the quad bike. They said they heard it but, unaware they were the ones being shot at, assumed it was someone else out hunting, so they turned around.
The man, still pointing the gun at the boyfriend, walked him back to his property where his then-partner was waiting. The jury will hear evidence from the man’s ex-partner during the trial.
The boyfriend believed he was going to die and said the man was threatening to shoot his hands. He said the man made him empty his pockets and hand over his phone.
At the man’s property, the boyfriend gave his passcode to the man and his then-partner, who began searching through his phone, as he feared what would happen to him if he didn’t, he said.
The boyfriend said he was accused of being a drug dealer as the man’s partner looked through his messages from his girlfriend’s sister’s partner, who had taken the cannabis, and sent him a photo of a map of the property.
The boyfriend, however, insisted the map was for looking at off-roading tracks in the area and denied he had anything to do with the cannabis.
The man continued to point the rifle at the boyfriend and told him ,“I know there’s someone else there”, referring to his missing cannabis.
CCTV footage from the man’s home security camera played to the jury showed a man pacing back and forth across his deck holding a rifle and wearing a full face mask.
The boyfriend said he told the man to just shoot him in the hand “because I’d had enough”.
“I thought it would have been the easiest way out. I just wanted it over and done with,” he told the court.
However, the boyfriend said the man’s partner told him, “Don’t do it here because it will make a big mess”, he said.
The Crown alleged the man then made the boyfriend climb into a dog kennel, where he was trapped on his hands and knees for about 15 minutes. The door was shut so he couldn’t escape.
The man told his then-partner to assault the boyfriend with a hammer if he tried to escape, Brand told the jury.
A short time later, a man who was carrying out some fencing work on the property arrived and let the boyfriend out of the kennel.
When the boyfriend got home, he told his girlfriend what had happened. She began crying and called her sister, telling her she needed to bring back the cannabis.
The boyfriend was so scared and shaken from the alleged kidnapping that he couldn’t sleep properly and said had to move out of Canterbury. He said it took a few days for him to report the matter to police as he just wanted to forget about it all.
The man’s lawyer Christopher Lange suggested the picture of the map the boyfriend had been sent wasn’t in reference to off-roading, but was in fact about the cannabis, which Lange alleged he planned to steal.
Lange referred to messages between the boyfriend and his uncle which included a forwarded picture of the map of the area with lines drawn on it. The message said the blue line was the road and the yellow line was the plot.
One of the messages from the boyfriend’s uncle read, “No matter what, it can’t come back to me”, to which he responded, “It won’t come back to you Uncle, I’m not that stupid.”
Lange put it to the boyfriend that he was discussing cannabis, to which he agreed, but denied that he was going to steal it.
Lange asked the boyfriend how many times he had gone for walks looking at off-roading tracks. He replied he had done it only once on the day of the incident.
The trial, set down for four days before a jury and Judge Paul Kellar continues.
Emily Moorhouse is a Christchurch-based Open Justice journalist at NZME. She joined NZME in 2022. Before that, she was at the Christchurch Star.
