KEY POINTS:
Three drunken men carried out an axe attack on a tree they blamed for a car crash that killed a friend, a court was told yesterday.
Harry James Hayward Swain, 23, Paul James Ashby, 22, and Zac Lance Pearsey, 24, meat worker, pleaded guilty in Gore District Court yesterday to intentionally damaging the Gore District Council-owned tree on November 25 last year.
The attack was carried out just over 12 hours after talented rugby player Jeremy Cowan was killed when the car he was a passenger in hit the tree in Gore's main street, The Southland Times reported.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Grant Gerken said the men hacked out a hole 20cm to 30cm wide and 10cm deep in the tree.
They told police they thought the tree was responsible for their friend's death.
Judge Kevin Phillips told the men that their claim they damaged the tree as some form of memorial or act of vengeance demeaned the memory of their friend.
But he said he would not impose any penalty apart from ordering each of them to pay $93 reparation for the damage.
- NZPA
