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The man accused of stabbing to death a teenage tagger has been committed to the High Court to stand trial for murder.
Businessman Bruce Emery, 50, pleaded not guilty at the end of the depositions hearing in the Manukau District Court yesterday but his lawyer, Chris Comeskey, conceded that on the evidence presented, there was a case to answer.
The trial is expected this year.
The tagger, Pihema Clifford Cameron, 15, died when he was stabbed in Manurewa on January 26 after he and a friend vandalised properties following a session drinking and smoking cannabis.
The other tagger, aged 16, who has name suppression, told the court he and Pihema ran down a street to get away from a man who disturbed them tagging a power box.
The man shouted, "Oi, what are you doing?" and chased them.
He said once the man caught up with them on a nearby street and got close to Pihema, Pihema said they should "rush him" in an attempt to scare him off.
In cross-examination, Mr Comeskey asked the 16-year-old if it would have been obvious to the man that he was about to be attacked.
The witness replied: "I think he was just saying that to scare him."
Mr Comeskey suggested that Pihema had his fists clenched and raised in a boxing pose but the friend said he could only remember Pihema's fists clenched at his side.
The man and Pihema were only about 30cm apart and the pair tried spraying the man's face with paint to stop him advancing.
"I had just seen him with a knife and wanted him away from me and my friend," the witness said.
The teenager said the man took a swing at him with a knife.
He then "punched and stabbed" Pihema on the right side of his chest and ran away.
Pihema told his friend, "He got me, he stabbed me".
He then noticed a large amount of blood on Pihema, who was "stumbling everywhere".
When Mr Comeskey suggested events had happened so quickly he could not be 100 per cent sure of all the details, the witness replied, "Yes".
He admitted he hadn't told police some things immediately after the stabbing because he was in shock.
The friend was the only witness to give evidence in court but 14 other witnesses gave written evidence.
More than a dozen family and friends of Pihema were at the hearing, many wearing bright green, which they said was his favourite colour.
Emery was remanded on bail for High Court callover on August 6.
- additional reporting: NZPA
