Witness in murder trial 'scared of repercussions', court told

Nicholas Pike. Photo / BOP Times

The key witness in the trial of a man accused of murdering a friend in the Desert Road seven years ago refused to talk to police for five years because she was "scared of the repercussions".

The woman, who has name suppression, was giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Thomas Hudson, 39, for the murder of Palmerston North man Nicholas Pike, 22, near the Desert Rd in the central North Island in March 2002.

Mr Pike's body has never been found.

The woman, who later became Hudson's girlfriend, told the High Court at Wellington yesterday she had been in the car with the two men on the Desert Rd when Hudson ordered her to get out and wait on the side of the road.

He returned 10 to 15 minutes later without Mr Pike, she said.

Hudson told her he had a cannabis plantation in the Desert Rd and had left Mr Pike to tend to it.

The woman today said she had asked about Mr Pike on two occasions and Hudson told her he had taken food to Mr Pike on the Desert Road, and later that Mr Pike had returned to Palmerston North.

She later questioned him on whether he had killed Mr Pike.

"He had told me never to talk to the police about that, about the Desert Road," she told the court today.

Defence counsel Mike Antunovic asked the woman why she had refused to cooperate with police until 2007, when two officers went to her house while she was at work and spoke to her husband.

"I was still scared of the repercussions," the woman said.

The woman had accompanied police to the Desert Road twice to try and pinpoint the place where she was dropped off, and she had identified three places where it may have been.

Mr Antunovic suggested the events in the woman's testimony had never taken place.

"This account that you've given to the court... that's just pure fiction, isn't it?"

"No, it's not," the woman replied.

Hudson's defence team said he could not have killed Mr Pike because he had been staying with family in Masterton from March 15, 2002, three days before the alleged murder took place.

The trial was expected to last four weeks.

- NZPA