One guilty, two acquitted of murder

File photo / Martin Sykes

One man has been convicted of murder and two others acquitted after a jury accepted they acted in self-defence in the killing of Christchurch man last year.

Adam Robert Gempton, 21, was found guilty in the High Court at Christchurch today of murder, following a 19-day trial of three men accused of killing 24-year-old Timothy John Constable, who was beaten and stabbed to death outside a house in the suburb of Burnside on August 7, 2009.

After 15 hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Levi Michael Coombs, 18, and Steven Wayne Bright, 26.

The three men all denied murder, saying that they had acted in self-defence against a man who defence lawyers portrayed as having a violent reputation when he was coming down from taking the drug P.

Mr Constable had arrived to pick up his teenage girlfriend, Gisinda Coombs, with whom he was known to have an on-again off-again violent relationship, holding an imitation handgun.

He was killed in the melee that followed.

Gempton wielded a knife and stabbed him four times, with one wound severing the aorta - a major blood vessel close to the heart - causing almost instant death.

Coombs struck him on the head with a Maori patu (club). Bright and Gempton tried, without success, to keep him alive using CPR until the ambulance arrived.

Gempton was remanded in custody to be sentenced on October 13.

His father cried in court and told his son he loved him as he was led to the cells. He also told the other families he was pleased about the outcome for their sons.

- NZPA