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Home / New Zealand

Gang members on trial in Rotorua have some charges discharged

AAP
28 Nov, 2017 01:42 AM3 mins to read

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The list of charges against eight Rotorua Mangu Kaha gang members on trial in the High Court at Rotorua has been reduced. Photo/File

The list of charges against eight Rotorua Mangu Kaha gang members on trial in the High Court at Rotorua has been reduced. Photo/File

The list of charges against eight Rotorua Mangu Kaha gang members on trial over an armed confrontation with the Mongrel Mob has shrunk from 32 to 20.

George Robert Jolley, Cramer Tana McMeeking, Chadwick Tamahou Matapuku, Daniel Tere McMeeking, Waimarama Horomai Te Kani, Robert Julian Dashwood, Christopher John Jolley and Major Wetini are on trial in the High Court at Rotorua.

Today, three weeks into proceedings, Justice Sarah Katz discharged all defendants on a charge of being a party to two shotgun firings in Western Heights on December 11, 2015.

George Jolley now faces two lesser alternatives to his original attempted murder charge.

The Crown also reduced a charge against Dashwood of discharging a gun with the intention of causing grievous body harm to one of recklessly firing a firearm.

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The remaining charges, faced either separately or collectively, include possessing offensive weapons, wilful damage, being unlawfully in a building and participating in an organised criminal group.

Closing the Crown case, prosecutor Andy Hill said there were clear indications all defendants were part of an organised criminal group who, armed with weapons including clubs and a shot gun, set out on a planned attack.

He described two secret witnesses as people with no axe to grind, saying they were honest and reliable.

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With the exception of "the tattooed man" - Dashwood - they had known all the defendants and could easily identify them.

Hill said there was no doubt George Jolley was the first shooter and intended to kill someone.

"They meant business, they wanted them (the Mongrel Mob ) out of their territory, they really wanted to assert their dominance in a very serious way," he told the jury.

"This was a very brazen attack in a residential area on a sunny afternoon, they showed complete disregard for law and order."

George Jolley's lawyer, Sam Wimsett, accused the Crown of conveniently editing the evidence of two drug addicts - secret witnesses A and B.

He reminded the jury of 11 that Witness A admitted being paranoid at the time of the confrontation because he'd gone 'cold turkey' from synthetic cannabis and regularly used methamphetamine.

Witness B had described "Hori" George Jolley as having greeny-blue eyes and wearing long trousers, however he had brown eyes and a police photograph taken soon after the Thomas Cres shooting showed him in shorts, he said.

Within minutes of the shooting Witness A had told a police officer in an alleyway he didn't know who the shooter was but the following day said it was George Jolley.

For Dashwood, lawyer Simon Lance pointed out the most serious charge he faced, discharging a firearm with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm, had been dropped because of lack of evidence.

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