After just over three hours of deliberations, a jury of eight women and four men delivered their verdict this afternoon. Reddington’s mother Isobel Anderson, who was sitting behind him, put her hands on the glass of the dock and sobbed.
Outside court, members of Gill’s family also cried.
His mother Lyn Saunders-Redpath said she was pleased with the outcome and thanked prosecutors, Masterton police and victim support for their hard work and support over the last year. She also hugged Reddington’s mother as she left the court.
“There’s no winners. They’ve lost their son for a period of time, but we’ve lost Jamie forever.”
She said Gill had his vulnerabilities, but he was a kind-hearted individual who would give the shirt off his back.
“There’s no closure, this ends a chapter and we’re glad this process is over so we can move forward,” she said.
Reddington was charged with murder after Gill’s cold and lifeless body was discovered face down in a ditch, partially clothed with extensive injuries at a rural property in Carterton in June 2023. The 32-year-old had been strangled, before suffocating in the mud and grass and had bits of his ears missing.
Gill had spent the previous night with two men – Reddington and his older brother Tipene – and their mother, who’d gone off to bed when the combined effects of alcohol and her strong medication took hold.
What happened on the night of June 24 after the trio had consumed a potent cocktail of methamphetamine, cannabis and alcohol in a sleepout, and then later on the driveway at the property, has been the subject of more than three weeks of intense scrutiny in the High Court at Wellington.
The Crown said Reddington– who’d been on a two-day bender– lashed out and attacked Gill in a drug and alcohol-fuelled rage. Reddington attacked Gill on the driveway, biting off bits of his ears before strangling him and dragging his friend’s body down the drive, through the gate and into the paddock where he flipped him on to his stomach, leaving him in a ditch.
In her closing address earlier this week, Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop told the court this was a case about a man who– fuelled by drugs, alcohol and rage– gave into the worst of his impulses.
“Mr Reddington knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway,” she said.
But Reddington’s defence said it wasn’t their client who lashed out, but his older brother Tipene.
The court heard a month after Gill’s death, Tipene was in a car with several people, including his mother and sister, when he launched an unprovoked attack on the pair, strangling his sister so hard her lips turned black and striking both women in the face with a wheel brace. He’d held a knife to his sister’s throat and threatened to kill her.
Defence lawyer Ian Hard told the jury on the night of the murder Reddington and Gill had scuffled in Tipene’s room in the sleepout. Bottles were broken, a table was overturned, chairs were out of place and paper was strewn across the floor. The defence said the act of trashing his room caused Tipene to lash out.
“He took it into his own hands and did something much worse later on. That’s something you can’t discount from someone who had an explosive temper when he drinks,” Hard said.
The sleepout at the Carterton property.
Hard also told the jury they couldn’t discount the possibility that having been in a fight, Gill had got away and collapsed in the ditch. Unconscious and unable to move, he’d inhaled the mud and grass and died without anyone holding him down. If that was the case, Hard invited the jury to consider a verdict of manslaughter.
Luminol testing on the driveway at the Carterton property.
Bishop said there were four reasons Reddington, not Tipene, was responsible for Gill’s death. The lack of Tipene’s DNA at the scene, the absence of GPS data from Tipene’s electronic bracelet near where Gill’s body was found, his continued denials and the fact he wasn’t the aggressor that night.
She said the drag marks in the driveway also suggested Gill hadn’t walked or run into the paddock by himself.
Hard said the forensic evidence was limited and could be explained by the earlier fight. He also said there were possible gaps in the GPS data and no one could corroborate Tipene’s evidence that he’d been in the main house or on his phone in the sleepout at the time of Gill’s death.
A police tent at the Carterton property where Jamie Gill's body was found in June 2023.
Mental illness or methamphetamine murder?
The Crown said this was a methamphetamine murder and Reddington knew his actions were wrong.
But Reddington’s defence said if the jury thought Reddington was responsible for Gill’s death, they asked them to consider a possible defence of insanity, citing Reddington’s mental illness.
Three psychiatrists gave evidence: two for the Crown, one for the defence. They agreed Reddington was adversely affected by a traumatic childhood, but couldn’t agree on a formal diagnosis.
The Crown said despite more than a decade under the care of mental health services, Reddington had no formal diagnosis of schizophrenia, and this was a drug-induced psychosis.
The defence said there had been no diagnosis of a drug-induced psychosis and Reddington was likely suffering from schizophrenia.
Summing up the case, Justice Jason McHerron told the jury to succeed with the insanity defence, Reddington’s lawyers had to show he was insane at the time of the incident.
Justice McHerron said a defendant was presumed to be sane, but if a defendant established that they were insane at the time they committed the act they are charged with, they are not criminally responsible because of their insanity.
He said the jury had to be satisfied that when Reddington killed Gill, he was more likely than not, suffering from schizophrenia, adding it wasn’t enough to say Reddington had an underlying condition of schizophrenia, he had to be suffering from it at the time of the killing.
Wire Manuel Reddington in the High Court at Wellington. Photo / Catherine Hutton
If they were satisfied Reddington was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of the killing, the jury also had to be satisfied that at the time he didn’t understand the nature of what he was doing, or he didn’t know what he was doing was morally wrong.
After the verdict was delivered, Justice McHerron convicted Reddington and remanded him in custody until December for sentencing. He also thanked Gill’s family, who have sat in the public gallery over the course of the trial, for their quiet dignity, saying it had moved him greatly.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media advisor at the Ministry of Justice.
