Adrian Reginald George Phillips at the start of his trial in the High Court at Hamilton for the murder of 20-year-old Bayden Williams in August 2020. Photo / Mike Scot
Adrian Reginald George Phillips at the start of his trial in the High Court at Hamilton for the murder of 20-year-old Bayden Williams in August 2020. Photo / Mike Scot
Adrian Phillips lay in wait with a sawn-off shotgun and a splitting axe for a young man he had harboured a grudge against for five months.
That is the Crown allegation against Phillips, who is charged with murdering Bayden Williams, 20, on August 5, 2020. Phillips' trial began in the High Court at Hamilton today.
The court heard that Phillips drove up the Kopu-Hikuai Rd between Kopu, near Thames, and Tairua to intercept Williams, ramming the young father's car off the road and shooting him in the shoulder, thigh and head when he got out.
The shot to the left side of the head was "rapidly fatal".
The jury was shown a photograph of a pool of blood on the road verge where Williams suffered the fatal wound, and heard Phillips rolled the young man's body back down the bank to his car.
Moments later Phillips messaged a friend saying: "I'm in big trouble cuz help asap".
The Crown case against Phillips, of Ngatea, is that the then 23-year-old bore a festering grudge against Williams after an altercation involving their fathers in January of the same year.
The two young men were in relationships with twin sisters Chloe and Macy Randall, Crown prosecutor Rebecca Mann told the jury of five men and seven women.
Williams and Chloe Randall, who had a baby son, separated that summer and Chloe took her father Peter Randall to collect her belongings from Williams' home.
Phillips was there when Williams' father, Lance Williams, and Peter Randall got into a scuffle. The younger Williams held Phillips back from the fight, Mann said.
From that moment Phillips' resentment of Williams began, she said.
Young dad, 20-year-old Bayden Williams, was found dead on State Highway 25a near Thames on August 5, 2020. Photo / File
Mann said during the next months Phillips bought the shotgun, ammunition, a gun holder and tried to find a balaclava.
Phillips, who didn't have a firearms licence, cleaned the rusted old gun, tested it by firing six rounds and reported back to the seller that it was working.
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'."
Mann said this was a reference to Phillips' plans to confront Williams.
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.
Against this backdrop, Phillips saw a Facebook post by Chloe Randall days before Williams' death, talking about a visit between Williams and their young son and how happy and successful it was.
He texted Chloe's mother, Paula Randall, and told her he wanted to know the next time Williams would be in Thames to visit Chloe.
When she said the family should hear Williams out, Phillips replied: "Me beating him up is nothing to do with your fam at all. It's personal between me and them now."
On August 5 the partner of Chloe's other sister messaged Phillips to tell him Williams was driving from Tairua for dinner. That's when Phillips headed up Kopu-Hikuai, Mann said.
After, Phillips instructed the partner to delete his messages and rang his girlfriend Macy Randall for help with his overheating car, the Crown said.
He met her at a school and told her what had happened before they drove home and he showered, Mann said.
Macy Randall called the police and later that night Phillips told them he had "f**ked up", had wound himself into a rage, and wished he could take it back, the court heard.
Phillips' defence counsel, Ron Mansfield QC, told the jury the Crown had painted Phillips as some kind of "Rambo" but that he was more like "Big Ted".
Mansfield said Phillips was suffering poor mental health at the time of the shooting, which he said the young man takes responsibility for.
The shooting was self-defence, Mansfield said, and there was reference to Williams having a knife, though Mann said earlier that no knife was found at the scene other than a pocket knife.
Mansfield said Phillips had been badly burned in a fire, which had affected him mentally and physically, and that Williams had physically and psychologically abused Chloe Randall.
Mansfield said the jury would hear from Phillips himself about the events leading up to the shooting including Williams' "violent assault" of Phillips in the January scuffle.
Williams' father Lance Williams was the first of 36 witnesses called by the Crown.
