Grant Tromp was allegedly assaulted by his neighbour with his own weedeater. Photo/ Michael Cunningham
Grant Tromp was allegedly assaulted by his neighbour with his own weedeater. Photo/ Michael Cunningham
At an exclusive gated community east of Whangārei, two older neighbours got into an argument about a patch of grass one was using a weedeater to trim.
Now, 71-year-old Lance Kennedy is on trial for allegedly whacking his neighbour Grant Tromp, 62, with Tromp’s own weedeater during the altercation on an autumn afternoon in 2020.
Tromp claims he was knocked unconscious in the unprovoked incident while tidying up the grass on the shared driveway, but Kennedy’s defence is that he was defending himself from an angry Tromp.
Lawson Drive is located just before Whangaumu Bay in Tūtūkākā, an idyllic spot with commanding views out to the Poor Knights Islands, and the gated community is home to eight multi-million-dollar properties owned by a few locals, offshore residents and Tromp’s Airbnb, Ocean Purring Views.
Both men are long-time residents of the exclusive community and live directly opposite each other, with a small patch of grass between them shared between the residents and the council.
Although the street is gated, there is no corporate body governing the upkeep and maintenance of the shared areas.
On the first day of Kennedy’s trial today in the Whangārei District Court, Tromp said on April 2, 2020, he and a guest who was staying with him were out clearing cutty grass on the shared verge because it was obstructing Tromp’s view.
“I was looking after our view, weed-eating on common land that anyone has a right to maintain, and I was doing my bit,” Tromp told the court.
Tromp told the jury Kennedy came out of his property and approached him with an angry disposition, asking what he was doing.
The average house price of a home on Lawson Drive is around $7 million. Photo / Googlemaps
“I turned off the weedeater and listened to his objections – ‘What are you doing? You have not asked permission to do that’,” Tromp said Kennedy asked him.
“This is common land, the common land is to be maintained by all of us if we so wish,” Tromp said he replied.
Tromp said he told Kennedy he had no jurisdiction to tell anyone what to do on the property, and that’s when Kennedy pulled the weedeater from him.
“What happened next?” Crown lawyer Pablo Hamber asked.
“He hit me with it, fair and square across the face,” Tromp replied.
Tromp claimed he fell to the ground and was unconscious for two to three minutes before he got up and was allegedly knocked to the ground again by Kennedy.
“Did you hit Mr Kennedy?” Judge John McDonald asked.
Before defence lawyer Wayne McKean began cross-examination, a summary of facts was read to the jury about an assault on another resident, Jeremy McGuiness, that Tromp was recently found guilty of by Judge Deidre Orchard.
“There was rust on the front gate. He [McGuiness] left the gate open, tied with a piece of cloth around the sensor so primer could dry,” the summary of facts stated.
“Mr McGuiness went down to check and saw Grant Tromp unwinding cloth from the sensor. He parked behind Tromp and said, ‘Don’t do that, I’ve just painted it’.
“I don’t give a f***”, Tromp responded to McGuiness.
“Tromp came up to the car. McGuiness got out of the car and Tromp punched him once, grabbed him and threw him into the bushes.
“Tromp scrambled at his eyes with his hands ... yelling obscenities ... As a result of this assault, McGuiness received scratches, bruises and sore shoulders,” the summary said.
McKean put to Tromp that he did not like Kennedy because Kennedy was in the role of administrator for the street and had been there longer than Tromp.
“You’re very wrong. We don’t have an administrator ... there was a person and two people who thought they wanted to be administrators,” Tromp said.
“You didn’t like the administrators,” McKean put to Tromp.
“We didn’t need one. We only had one gate and it only needed the electricity to be paid. It doesn’t need an administration to do that,” Tromp said.
“Was there a covenant on the title that said the owner of the property is not allowed to do work unless majority agreement of other owners?” McKean asked.
“I couldn’t tell you ... but on our title, if there’s anything impeding our view, we were cleared to remove it if it obstructed our view.”
“Your response to Kennedy was, ‘Go f*** yourself’,” McKean said.
McKean said it would be the defence case Tromp approached Kennedy with the weedeater, angry he was being told what to do by another resident.
McKean said Kennedy would say Tromp lifted the weedeater in the air at Kennedy, who caught the machine as it was coming down, and Tromp lost control of the machine.
“He’s going to say when he got the weedeater, you came at him punching him,” McKean said.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.
