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Accused denies being part of gang
stabbing
06.10.2004
A life member of the Highway 61 gang who is accused of murdering the national
president, Kevin Paul Weavers, told a jury yesterday that he was not present
when the stabbing took place.
Michael Douglas Gould, 54, and former Auckland president Kelly Raymond
Robertson, 45, are charged with killing Mr Weavers at the gang headquarters in
Manurewa in September last year.
A third accused, Michael William Brittain, 44, who waited outside, is said to
have instigated the deadly assault in retribution after Mr Weavers and others
attacked him with hammers and stole his motorcycle.
Yesterday, Gould's lawyer, Panama Le'au'anae, told the jury in the High Court at
Auckland that Gould was not part of any assault on Mr Weavers.
He had merely gone to the gang pad to get a spare part for his motorbike.
Gould told the jury that while looking for the part in another part of the
premises, he heard raised voices and a loud crash.
When he went to investigate, he saw Robertson getting up from the ground.
Robertson told him that Mr Weavers had attacked him and that Mr Weavers was
injured in the leg and needed an ambulance.
Robertson told a sentry, who has name suppression, to phone the emergency
services.
Gould said he was not too worried about Mr Weavers as he appeared to be getting
up.
Gould denied that his going to the pad had anything to do with getting
Brittain's motorcycle back.
In his evidence last week, Robertson said Mr Weavers suddenly attacked him with
a double-bladed knife when he raised the subject of Brittain having his bike
returned to him.
In the ensuing struggle, he said, Mr Weavers was stabbed in the thigh with his
own blade.
He died of massive blood loss.
Earlier yesterday, gang associate John Thorburn, called by Robertson's defence,
said Mr Weavers twice "taxed" him by taking his motorcycles, one of them a
special Harley-Davidson he claimed was worth $100,000.
The Harley was taken by Mr Weavers and four other men who came to his home and
broke down his gate and garage door.
Mr Thorburn said Mr Weavers sprayed him with a fire extinguisher and then tried
to hit him with it.
Weavers trial told of savage beating
06.10.2004 4.00 pm
A jury in the Kevin Paul Weavers murder trial was told today of a savage beating
he handed out to one of the men accused of killing him.
Sue Hale said in the High Court at Auckland that Mr Weavers, the Highway 61
national president, and four other men attacked her partner, Michael William
Brittain, with engineering ball pein hammers.
He was left with serious head injuries, a stab to his calf which exposed the
muscle and a severely broken arm.
The attack was retribution for Brittain allegedly setting up two friends of
Weavers to be assaulted during a dinner party earlier that evening.
The Crown says that four days after being beaten by Mr Weavers and his
associates, Brittain discharged himself from hospital and got Kelly Raymond
Robertson and Michael Douglas Gould to attack Mr Weavers in the gang
headquarters in Manurewa on September 27 last year.
Brittain, badly injured, waited outside while the other two went into the gang
pad.
Mr Weavers died from blood loss after being stabbed in the leg.
In his opening address Brittain's lawyer, Chris Comeskey, said that the Crown
suggestion that Brittain had managed to talk Robertson, a former chapter
president, and Gould, a Highway 61 life member, into going to the gang pad to
kill Mr Weavers was a "ludicrous proposition."
Sue Hale told the court that they had invited a couple over for dinner, but
another man turned up and assaulted the male.
The couple left without eating accusing Brittain of being no friend and setting
them up.
About 20 minutes later Mr Weavers arrived with four other men armed with
hammers.
Ms Hale said that she was restrained but saw Weavers viciously hit Brittain over
the head at least twice with a hammer.
"Mike didn't even have a chance to get out of the chair. He was trying to get up
and Link (Mr Weavers) was just hitting him over the head."
She said that Brittain was screaming, making horrible sounds and protesting that
he had not set up Weavers' friends.
When the men left, they took Brittain's prized Harley Davidson motorbike and his
car.
The Crown says that in hospital Brittain told staff he intended to get even.
But Ms Hale said she never heard him speak of revenge or retribution.