‘I would have been killed’: Why farmer Bill Burr ordered his son to chop off the tip of a teen’s finger

Bill Burr says he fears he would have been dead if he hadn't found his shotgun and pointed it at the teens until police arrived. Photo / Mike Scott

Bill Burr still wakes at 1.45am every day - the time two teens broke into his home and bashed him multiple times over the head in a bid to steal his car. But he has no regrets about how that day played out, despite ending up in court after one teen’s fingertip was cut off during the home invasion. Six months on, Burr tells Open Justice while he is unrepentant about what happened, the subsequent months haven’t been easy.

“Do you want a biscuit?” Bill Burr asks after we turn up at his home on his sprawling Piopio dairy farm. “I bought them especially for you guys,” he replies when we say “no thanks”.

William “Bill” Burr has always got a smile on his face. And, it seems, freshly bought biscuits for guests.

But eight months ago, it was more of a nervous smile as the 67-year-old sat in the dock of the High Court at Hamilton.

He and his son Shaun faced a daunting trial defending multiple charges, including wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and maiming, after chopping off the tip of a teenager’s little finger after a home invasion in October 2020.

After an eight-day trial, a jury acquitted the pair of all charges.

That May afternoon he confidently strutted out of the courthouse with a grin a mile wide. Burr had always maintained his innocence, saying he was just trying to protect himself after a 17-year-old 140kg teenage boy and his girlfriend broke into his King Country home in the early hours.

As well as the violence charges, Burr was charged, and this month sentenced, on three counts of unlawful possession of two firearms and ammunition.

They’re in relation to a gun his father Bruce gave him 50 years ago, and a new gun and ammunition his concerned family bought after rumours started to circulate about Burr being targeted in a revenge attack after the teen’s fingertip was cut off.

He’s now sporting a new piece of jewellery of the electronic kind for that. He has to wear his monitoring bracelet for the next six months as part of his community detention and is unable to leave his property between 9pm and 7am each day.

Burr isn’t bothered by the hours as it means he can spend time corralling the 700-odd stock on his beef and dairy farm, which has about six staff.

But he is keen to share what it was like to be attacked in the dead of night, why his Trump flag is tattered beyond repair, and his thoughts on the state of youth crime today.

‘I would have been killed’

Does Burr regret anything from the night of the invasion?

“No, you know, no, heck no,” he says. “What I had to deal with, a 140kg drugged-up teen, in a rage, with a knife coming at you, heck no.

“I didn’t shoot him, that was the main thing. Taking a life, that’s the last resort.”

It was the fourth time the teen, who he knew, had broken into his home; the previous time was just a week earlier.

His wife and daughter, who don’t want to be named, were already gone by then. They moved out after the second burglary when discovering an axe the teen left behind after he stole Burr’s car and crashed it on a bend at Mangakino, south of Raglan.

Bill Burr as he looked on the night of the home invasion, after being attacked with wine bottles and other items. Photo / Supplied

By the time the teens - who both have name suppression as they were youths at the time - came this time, Burr had boarded up most of his house hoping the boy wouldn’t be able to get inside again.

But he forgot about the bathroom window. The teen lifted his then 15-year-old girlfriend through and she opened the door for him.

The first Burr knew about it was at 1.45am when, in a deep sleep, he was hit over the head with a wine bottle.

It didn’t smash, so the teen girl hit him again. It still didn’t break. A tussle - which involved the teen boy smashing another bottle over his head - ensued for about eight minutes.

“For eight minutes, I fought for my life,” Burr said.

He was hit with a broom, as well as being struck with wine bottles, and suffered cuts from the smashed glass.

“I got bottled, broomed, stabbed a bit and I just ran out of puff and ended up turning the light on ... he was in a rage at the end of the bed. He was gonna kill us. His eyes were just sticking out, I’ll never forget it.”

He told the teen he could have his keys, that they were in the kitchen.

After the teen left, Burr sat naked at the end of the bed next to the girlfriend.

The pair were as embarrassed as each other and Burr asked if he could put on his underwear, lying on the floor in front of them. She quickly left.

He then took the opportunity to also grab his shotgun from the bedroom closet.

Burr marched down the hallway, and took control of the situation by pointing it at the teen and getting them both on the floor.

Asked what would have happened if he didn’t have his gun that night, Burr responds steadfastly.

“I would have been killed. No doubt about it.

“If I didn’t have that gun locked and loaded, I would have got killed.

“I’m convinced of it. He was coming at us to do damage and if [Shaun] hadn’t got there in time when he did, I probably would have had to shoot him.”

Later, people told him he could have run away, but that was never an option, Burr said, as it was likely the teen had been dropped off by friends who could have been waiting outside.

The aftermath of Bill Burr's bed after he was hit over the head multiple times with wine bottles during the home invasion. Photo / Supplied

“The whole house was blocked up.

“What am I running out to? His mates outside? He obviously didn’t fly down.”

Fighting back

As well as calling 111, the local constable, his son and neighbours for help, Burr took photos of the scene.

Some of them were shown to the jury. One of the most compelling was of his shotgun, pointing at the teenagers as they lay on the floor.

Burr doesn’t want it published for fear of people taking it the wrong way, or out of context.

Instead he talks Open Justice through it, showing how the teen has his phone in one hand and is lying on his side, with his other hand underneath, concealing a knife.

“I said ‘get down’,” Burr explained.

“The first thing he did was get his phone out and he was on the phone.

“Then he was trying to get up all the time and every time I said, ‘Get off the phone or I’ll shoot you’.

“I didn’t want to shoot him.”

As the teen continued to ignore him, he decided to threaten to shoot the girlfriend.

“I said ‘I’ll shoot the girl’, and she was terrified.”

Shaun Burr was the first to arrive on the scene.

He came so quickly Burr thought it may have been one of the teen’s friends he’d been messaging on his phone.

But in walked Shaun, much to Burr’s relief.

“I remember him looking at me because I had blood and glass in my head and was beaten up all around.”

In that short time, as the pair exchanged glances, the teen got to his feet.

Burr got him back down on the floor and again told the teen to “stick both hands out”.

“He wouldn’t do it. He was always lying on his side.

William 'Bill' Burr leaves the High Court at Hamilton in May last year after being acquitted of multiple violence charges. Photo / Belinda Feek

“The kitchen’s not very wide and I said to my son, ‘Don’t get too close, he’s got a knife’, and then, he wouldn’t comply, still tried to get up, so we had to debilitate him.”

Shaun grabbed a knife; Burr can’t recall what kind.

He then told his son to “cut [the teen’s] hand off”.

“[I was] thinking [the teen] would give up the knife but he wouldn’t. So my son started just cutting his finger a bit, but he wouldn’t give it up.”

Burr got a piece of wood to hammer down on the knife, as the teen refused to let it go.

Instead, Burr said, the teen responded by threatening “I’m gonna f***ing stab you, I’m gonna stab you”, with what was a “big, pointed, 300mm knife”.

The tip of the finger was eventually chopped off.

Asked how long it took, Burr said, “not very long, no,” possibly “two or three minutes”.

He couldn’t recall how many times the wood was used to bang down on the knife, and said the teen didn’t say a word throughout the whole thing.

“I think he was just that drugged out. He didn’t feel no pain about anything. He was in a rage, it was unreal.”

Burr said the teen lay still for a while but then “tried again to get up and get the knife and to knife us, so it didn’t stop him”.

Piopio constable Tony Schrafft arrived shortly afterwards, telling the teen to lie on his stomach, when the wine bottle rolled out from underneath him.

The teen still didn’t hand over the knife, Burr said. That only happened once St John paramedics arrived.

Ambulance officer Jan-Maree Pool told the jury she first saw the knife when her colleague was kneeling while treating the teen.

“I said ‘s***, that’s a knife under your knee’ ... and [the colleague] indicated to the police officer that it was there and that she wanted it gone.”

The whereabouts of the knife the teen brought to the house that night remains a bone of contention for Burr.

He’s still frustrated that once it was given to a police officer, it never reappeared.

“The knife went missing and I want answers from [Police Commissioner Andrew] Coster and police about it, because it’s totally unacceptable.”

When contacted for comment, Waikato police Detective Senior Sergeant Ross Patterson said one knife was found during the scene examination.

He said that was referred to in the subsequent trial and will be returned to the owner.

“There is potentially the existence of a second knife at the scene but police did not locate another knife during the scene examination that appeared to be relevant to the investigation.

“Any suggestion of any wrongdoing around a second knife is unfounded.

“All evidence pertaining to this matter was disclosed appropriately and presented at trial,” Patterson said.

Protecting yourself

Burr is adamant he and his son shouldn’t have had to go through the courts.

“We should never have been charged for this.

“I’ve got to keep strong, but my family went through the whole ordeal. It just should never have happened.”

He explains that about a year passed between the second and third burglaries, and there were multiple family group conferences and discussions with the teen’s social workers - who he describes as “Little Bo Peep and Little Red Riding Hood” given how they dealt with him.

King Country farmer William 'Bill' Burr helps ready the cows for milking on his property near Piopio. Photo / Mike Scott

“They’re all namby pamby and ‘he’s feeling bad and doing this and that’. He needed a bit of a male role model straight up.”

Burr visited the teen’s mother and said she had been “trying her best” with him.

“She’s a pearl of a mother and wants to help him.”

After the second burglary, Burr’s family offered the teen work on the dairy farm and a chance to play rugby, saying he wouldn’t have to worry about reparation.

But then, their place was hit for the third time, Burr waking to find the ranch slider door lifted off its hinges and his car gone.

Feeling an affinity with dairy owners who have faced growing ram raids and violence this year, Burr encouraged them to do what it took to protect themselves from armed robbers.

“What happened is just disgraceful with the stabbing [of Janak Patel].

“I saw a Coster cop on TV say, ‘Don’t take the law into your own hands’.

“[But] you’ve got the right to protect yourself and any jury will never convict you trying to defend yourself.”

He labelled fog cannons “just nonsense”, but is a fan of National’s proposed army boot camps for youth.

“The dairy owners, they’ve got to protect themselves because they can’t trust the police or the authorities to keep themselves safe.”

A Trump flag in tatters

Burr appears relieved the criminal proceedings are over and he’s happy to serve his time. He doesn’t even mind the community work.

“I’m enjoying it. We cleaned up a school and I met some good fellas.

Bill Burr is a well-known Donald Trump supporter, but the sign, at the front of his SH3 farm, has seen better days. Photo / Mike Scott

“I’m going to do some more. I couldn’t believe the way the local schools have been left to run down, because the rolls have gone down and everything.

“I’ve got to be home at 9pm, that’s all good, and I’m enjoying the community work so we’ll get that out of the way.”

He’s also not shy about sharing his support for former United States president Donald Trump.

His State Highway 3 property is, after all, known for the Trump flag and hoardings that have been proudly displayed for the past four years or so.

They are looking a little worse for wear when Open Justice arrives; the flag’s in tatters and the signs appear to have been shot at, or had rocks thrown at them.

“Oh I know ... I must get another one,” Burr said, explaining it had actually been torched.

But his support for Trump remains staunch.

“Well, Biden, you’d have to be a moron to vote for Biden.

“There were no wars with Trump.

“Putin would never have invaded Ukraine with Trump because Biden hit the oil industry and it all went up, so Putin had a string to his bow.

“And inflation was 1 per cent with Trump, the economy was booming. People will see.”

As for domestic politics, “Oh it’s got to be a landslide to National” Burr said, adding “this lot’s got to be kicked out”.

He believes the country has been let down by Labour but also by NZ First.

“I voted for Winston Peters, I gave him the power and he should have gone with National, but he went with Labour and since then the crime has just been out of control.

“Soft on crime, namby pamby stuff.

“National’s right [with] boot camps and that, but you’ve got to toughen the laws so they don’t do crime.

The teens lay on the floor as Bill Burr waits for police to arrive. Photo / Supplied

“And you know, a bit of law and order and a bit of respect and get things on the right path. It’s easy,” he laughs.

Deep scars

Underneath the bravado, his staunch right-leaning beliefs, grievances against police, his will to stay strong for his family, and a near hour-long chat, it becomes clear that Burr remains psychologically affected by what happened.

We go back to talking about it being dark and him being asleep when he was attacked.

“I thought there were about 10 in the room.

“I tell you what, I wake up at the same time every night and I’ve got to learn not to take it to bed.

“1.45am I always wake up.

“I’m not too bad but I always used to sleep right through. But you take it to bed with you every night and you’ve got to think of something else and go to bed tired.

“Any little noise, the cat, she’s kicked out.”

In the same breath, he’s philosophical about the end result.

“Hey look, people are like ‘you could have been stabbed, you could have been killed, could have been in a wheelchair’.

“If I wasn’t prepared, it could have been worse.”