Kopu murder trial: 'Hey Dad, how's your day, yeah all good son', grieving father's last words to son

Bayden Williams died after being shot by Adrian Phillips on the Kopu-Hikuai Rd in August 2020. Photo / File

The former girlfriend of a man gunned down on a rural winding road says his alleged killer began acting differently in the months leading up to the incident.

Bayden Williams' former girlfriend, Chloe Randall, told the High Court at Hamilton how murder accused Adrian Phillips seemed to change after a fight at their flat seven months before the shooting when she went to get her belongings.

She explained how all four of them, including her sister and Phillips, used to get on, but after a fight in January 2020 he started behaving "a little bit erratic".

"We would spend less time together. He was just elsewhere. But we were always good.

"Bayden and Adrian were really good friends at the time and it was just after what me and Bayden went through, Adrian didn't like that.

"He was protecting me."

She and Williams had organised to catch up for dinner the night he died, but he never arrived.

They organised to meet at the Thames Bowling Club so that Phillips wouldn't notice his car in town.

She knew that Phillips was still angry with Williams jnr after the January fight.

"Not that he was going to hurt him, just that he was mad about it, mad at Bayden."

She waited at a local restaurant for 45 minutes that night, noticing an ambulance head towards Kopu which immediately made her think the worst.

She still couldn't get hold of him so went home and asked other people to try.

Adrian Phillips is alleged to have driven the victim off the road before shooting him three times. Photo / Mike Scott.

Someone, who had a police scanner, then posted on Facebook about a shooting on the Kopu-Hikuai Rd and after finding out where Phillips lived, a couple of hours later, she "put two and two together" about who was involved.

'Father's last words with shot son'

Lance Williams popped into the Gull Service Station in Tairua on the morning of August 5, 2020, picking up a Red Bull while he was there.

His son, Bayden, 20, worked there and, seeing his father he yelled out, "Hey Dad, how's your day?" he said.

"Yeah all good son. Those were my last words," Williams snr said, choking back tears in the dock today.

He was the first person to give evidence in relation to the alleged murder of his son by Adrian Reginald George Phillips.

Phillips, 23, is accused of waiting in his car for Williams as he travelled along the winding Kopu-Hikuai Rd about 7pm on that same day.

Spying Williams' car, he crashed into the back of it, sending it careering off the road. After Williams clambered up an embankment, Phillips has then shot him in the shoulder, thigh and head and then rolled his body back down the hill, Crown prosecutor Rebecca Mann told the jury.

Williams snr said he was told by police of his death at 3am the following day.

"Unbelievable," he said.

Rambo gone nato?

At the time of the shooting, Phillips and Williams were in relationships with twin sisters.

Williams and his partner had a baby son and separated in the summer of 2020.

In January of that year, she organised to take her father to collect her belongings from Williams' home when he was at work.

Phillips was there when Williams' father and the partner's father got into a scuffle. The younger Williams - who was tipped off to the group being at the house - held Phillips back from the fight, Mann said.

It was then that Phillips' resentment of Williams began, she said.

The defendant then set about buying a shotgun, ammunition and gun holder and unsuccessfully tried to find a balaclava.

Phillips, who didn't have a firearms licence but was a trained mechanic, cleaned the rusted old gun, successfully firing six rounds.

When the seller asked why he needed a balaclava Phillips told the friend: "Balaclavas are handy as, eh cuz."

In a response to the friend about long-barrelled guns, Phillips messaged: "Long barrel for long shot and sawn-off for 'being nato'."

He sent a friend a photo on Snapchat of the gun in the wheel well of his car with ammunition nearby and implied to friends he intended to attack Williams.

A few days before the shooting, Phillips saw a Facebook post by his partner's sister talking about a visit between Williams and their young son and how happy and successful it was.

He texted the girls' mother and told her he wanted to know the next time Williams would be in Thames.

"[Father] and Bayden will be sorry when I am done with them," he messaged her.

On the night of August 5, the partner of Chloe's other sister messaged Phillips to tell him Williams was driving from Tairua for dinner, without realising, Mann said, what passing on that information would mean.

That's when Phillips headed up Kopu-Hikuai, Mann said. His friend who sold him the shotgun asked what he was up to when Phillips sent him a Snapchat image of the shotgun on the passenger seat next to a splitting axe.

The friend replied "true cuz, you going over there", and Phillips replied with a similar photo and that he was "going to try and have some fun with him".

"It's very clear what sort of fun he was planning as he waited for Bayden to come through."

Waiting in his ute about 5km east of Kopu, Phillips spied Williams, crashed into his car and shot him three times.

Ngatea man Adrian Phillips denies murdering Bayden Williams in August 2020. Photo / File

Mann made the point that Phillips had to reload his weapon each time.

Having shot him, he dragged him to the edge of the bank and rolled him down. Williams' body came to rest against the front of his car.

Phillips then texted his friend "Im in big trouble cuz help asap", travelling home to have a shower. He told his partner what happened and she called police.

'He was defending himself'

Defence counsel Ron Mansfield said while his client admitted shooting Williams, he did so in self-defence as, after crashing his car, Williams clambered up the bank armed with a knife.

"His actions were in defence of himself and the confrontation he was facing at the time with the belief that Williams had a knife."

He said the Crown downplayed it as just being a "pocket knife" but it could still "cause significant harm".

Leading up that night, Phillips had been suffering mentally after being involved in a house fire and suffering significant burns.

After that, he sought refuge at home, quitting his job and avoiding people at all costs.

His client was no "Rambo figure, looking for destruction ... but before the fire more like a Big Ted".

As for the "scuffle" in January, Mansfield said it was an "assault" and his client was upset at having been stopped trying to help his then girlfriend's father being strangled during the fight on the floor.

Mansfield also claimed Williams broke up with his girlfriend as a result of "psychological and physical abuse" along with his excessive drinking.

"That's why they separated and she sought refuge at her parents' home."

Trial restart

Meanwhile, despite the trial beginning on Tuesday, a new jury was empanelled yesterday after an issue emerged with one of the jurors.

That issue can't be reported, but a new jury was empanelled on Wednesday with the trial effectively restarting and the judge delivering her opening statement.

This morning, the Crown and defence reopened before the first witness began his evidence again just after 11.30am.