Christchurch builder Michael Craig McGrath, 49, was last seen at his home in Halswell, Christchurch, in May 2017.
Christchurch builder Michael Craig McGrath, 49, was last seen at his home in Halswell, Christchurch, in May 2017.
A prison guard arrived at a mate’s place the day before he vanished and asked for help shifting some heavy railway sleepers at his semi-rural property the next morning, a court heard today.
But he claims that Michael McGrath didn’t turn up - and has never been seen again - sparking a massive missing person probe and region-wide search.
It led to the former Corrections officer David Benbow, 54, being charged with murder some two years later.
Benbow denies killing Michael McGrath and is standing trial at the High Court in Christchurch.
The Crown alleges that Benbow lured McGrath to his Halswell property on Monday, May 22, 2017, under the ruse of needing help to shift the sleepers and used his .22 semi-automatic rifle, with suppressor and sub-sonic ammunition, to shoot him dead and then dispose of his body, just weeks after learning he was seeing his ex-partner Joanna Green and telling a counsellor he wanted to “annihilate” him.
No body, and no gun, has ever been found.
Benbow’s defence team has warned the jury that the police had “investigative bias” and “tunnel vision” from early in its investigations.
Green has spent the last three days of the trial giving evidence.
She told how she spent Sunday, May 21, with McGrath, who she had just started seeing.
It was the only time they had enjoyed an entire day together without her two children.
David Charles Benbow denies murdering Michael McGrath and is standing trial at the High Court in Christchurch. Photo / Kai Schwoerer, Stuff, Pool
That night, Green phoned McGrath twice, the court heard. He told her that Benbow had asked him to come around and help him move some sleepers.
Defence counsel Kathy Basire put it to Green that McGrath had given the impression that he didn’t want to go around and help, which she agreed was right.
On one phonecall, Green says new man McGrath had said Benbow had arrived at his Checketts Ave house announced earlier that Sunday, saying he’d been at the medical centre and his car had broken down.
McGrath told her he welcomed the opportunity to say to Benbow that since the couple had separated - who he had known for years - he would go around to see Green and the kids in her new rental property and that he was friends with them both.
He was careful not to say they were in an intimate relationship, the court heard.
McGrath told her that if Benbow had asked him that day if he was having sex with her, he would, “Deny, deny, deny.”
When McGrath didn’t attend a weekly dinner engagement at his mother’s house on Tuesday, May 23, 2017, and Green couldn’t reach him, she became concerned for his welfare.
She phoned McGrath’s mother Adrienne McGrath, who earlier recounted to the jury a loyal, reliable private son who would “anything for anybody”, and asked her if Michael had shown up for tea.
The trial is ongoing at the High Court in Christchurch. Photo / Pool
Green phoned her back soon after and, when told McGrath still wasn’t there, she said she was concerned Benbow had done something to him.
She tried to call Benbow from Mrs McGrath’s house and when it went to voicemail said that one of their children was unwell and could he please ring her.
“It was a plot to get David to ring me,” Green told the court.
Seconds later, she used Mrs McGrath’s phone and he picked up.
When Green asked when he last saw McGrath, and he allegedly said “Wednesday I think”, she called him a liar - she said he had seen him on Sunday. Benbow then reportedly agreed and that McGrath was supposed to come around on Monday morning but didn’t show up, allegedly adding, “You know what he’s like.”
Green told him he had one chance to tell her if he’d done anything to McGrath otherwise she would phone the police.
In a later phone conversation, Benbow allegedly asked her: “Am I waiting for police?”
In cross-examination, Green denied that Benbow had asked if he should come round to McGrath’s to check on him.
“I was on a mission to find Michael,” Green told the court.
While the Crown accepts there is no body, no murder weapon, and little forensic evidence in the case, it says there is a strong circumstantial case consisting of many threads that, when taken together, show Benbow is guilty of McGrath’s murder beyond reasonable doubt.
Lead defence counsel Marc Corlett KC earlier said that “within hours” of McGrath’s disappearance, Green had pointed the finger of blame at Benbow “and the police duly obliged”.
