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Sentry tells of bloody scene
A sentry guarding the Highway 61 headquarters told an Auckland jury yesterday of hearing arguing and shouting before seeing two men standing near the bleeding body of gang boss Kevin Paul Weavers.
Mr Weavers, the Auckland and national club president, died on the way to hospital from a 22cm wound to the leg which punctured his femoral artery.
The sentry, who has name suppression, told the High Court jury that he let Kelly Raymond Robertson, an immediate past president, and Michael Douglas Gould, a life member, into the fortified compound in Manurewa when they rang a buzzer on the gate.
Mr Weavers lived in a portable building in the workshop of the complex with his girlfriend.
The sentry, who was an "agent" or prospective gang member, lived on the site and worked with Mr Weavers dismantling vehicles.
Robertson and Gould are accused of Mr Weavers' murder with a third man, Michael William Brittain, who the Crown maintains initiated the fatal attack.
Three days before the stabbing, Mr Weavers left Brittain in hospital with injuries from a hammer attack, including a badly-broken arm. The Crown alleges that Brittain was intent on revenge.
Once inside the gang headquarters, Robertson and Gould went into the workshop while the sentry went back to watching television.
Almost immediately he heard people arguing and shouting and banging and crashing as car parts flew everywhere and went to investigate. He found Mr Weavers bleeding heavily.
The sentry told the jury that as the two men left the headquarters, Robertson said to him: "I think he needs an ambulance."
He said he called to Mr Weavers' girlfriend to phone for an ambulance while he put pressure on Mr Weavers' leg wound in an effort to stop the bleeding. He did not see anyone with any weapons.
The sentry said he tried to keep the police out when they arrived, but there were too many of them and they "swarmed the place like flies".
Although it was his "man who was down", the sentry refused to co-operate with the police.
"Tell them nothing" was the gang attitude to the police.
After two days in custody for a breach of bail, he gave police the names of Robertson and Gould. Earlier an employee of Robertson told the jury that he sat in a four-wheel-drive vehicle outside the gang pad with Brittain while Robertson and Gould went inside.
Brittain told him what had happened to him and started talking about his bike.
"I asked him to stop because I didn't want to hear anything he was going to say, because I had nothing to do with what was happening," said the employee, who also has name suppression.
In the vehicle afterwards no one spoke about what happened.
The man said that after seeing the television news that night, he asked Robertson what happened, but was told "just keep quiet".
Asked by prosecutor Brian Dickey why he didn't go to the police, the employee said: "Because I was in a situation. I was scared that if he had done it, I was scared for my life."
Cross-examined by defence lawyers Peter Neutze, Panama Le'au'anae, and Chris Comeskey, the witness agreed there was nothing unusual about the demeanour of Robertson or Gould as they went to and from the pad. He never saw any weapons or blood.
The defence maintains that the visit was merely to retrieve Brittain's motorcycle.
The trial before, Justice Colin Nicholson, continues today with cross-examination of the sentry.
