Officer thought fatally shot colleague was hiding, court told

John Ward Skinner (left) and Iain Clegg in the Manukau District Court today. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

A policeman who found a fellow officer fatally shot and another seriously injured had thought they were hiding until he saw blood on the ground, a court heard today.

Sergeant Don Wilkinson was killed and his colleague shot three times while planting a tracking device on a car in South Auckland on September 11 last year.

John Ward Skinner, 37, and Iain Lindsay Clegg, 33, are jointly charged with murdering Mr Wilkinson and attempting to murder the other officer, whose name is suppressed.

Detective Sergeant Greg Holmes was the first to arrive at the scene of the shooting outside 41 Earlsworth Avenue in Mangere.

Mr Holmes today told Manukau District Court that he had been warned by another officer that there was movement at the Haines Avenue address where St Wilkinson and his colleague were attaching a tracking device to a Ford explorer owned by Skinner.

"Shortly afterwards there was a call to evacuate," said Mr Holmes.

He then described how he frantically searched for his two support staff, performing several u-turns on neighbouring streets before spotting them in a driveway.

"That's when I saw them lying next to a fence. Initially I thought they were hiding his [Don Wilkinson] head was up against a fence, I recall seeing blood on the ground. It was at that point I knew it was serious."

Mr Holmes called 111 while another officer began CPR on Sgt Wilkinson's colleague.

Neither Skinner nor Clegg was asked to enter a plea on the first day of their depositions hearing.

Crown prosecutor Aaron Perkins said that the evidence the court would hear related mainly to the early hours of September 11.

He said either as a result of Mr Wilkinson and a colleague triggering a sensor or a closed circuit camera while they attached a tracking device, the two defendants left a nearby house.

The two officers ran off, chased by the men in a motor vehicle.

Mr Perkins said that when they caught up with the two officers the two defendants committed the alleged crime of murder and attempted murder.

The weapon used was an airgun, he said.

- With NZPA