R v Ma'u - [2008] NZCA 117

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND
CA441/07
CA717/07
[2008] NZCA 117
THE QUEEN
v
SEMISI MA'U
TYSON REDMAN
Hearing:14 April 2008

Court:Hammond, Williams and MacKenzie JJ
Counsel:C B Wilkinson-Smith for Appellant Ma'u

B J Hart and A J Haskett for Appellant Redman
M D Downs for Crown

Judgment:5 May 2008 at 2.15 pm

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

A The appeals against conviction are dismissed.
BIn relation to Mr Redman the application for an extension of time for appealing against the sentence is dismissed.

REASONS OF THE COURT
(Given by Hammond J)
Introduction
[1]        On 17 September 2005 a 21^st birthday party was held for a Ms Norman at an Auckland home. A neighbour, Y, was invited. Y was intoxicated and acting aggressively. Y and another party-goer, Z, had a fight. Y got the worst of it and left the party.
[2]        Y later returned to the party with a number of supporters who wrongly believed he had been stabbed during the altercation with Z. In fact that was wrong – Y had cut his arm by accident after leaving the party but his “group” wanted retribution. The situation was defused at that stage and this group of people left.
[3]        This group of men then returned in the early hours of the following morning. The group included Winston Uepi, Arthur Aunese, his young brother Edwin Aunese, Mark Fameitau, Tyson Redman, Nathan Lumbers, Semisi Ma’u and his younger brother Jonathan Ma’u, and Maka Feki, along with others. These people were in dead earnest: they mounted an attack on the party-goers involving the use of blunt-force weapons, such as pieces of wood, a golf club, a baseball-bat like instrument, and a table leg. It also involved the throwing of a number of bottles by this group into a garage where the 21^st birthday party-goers were trapped.
[4]        Z was assaulted by a number of men. He suffered lacerations to his forehead, left ear and bruising on his right face and shoulders. He required medical treatment.
[5]        Another attendee, A, was also assaulted very badly, this time by being struck in the face with a golf club. A suffered serious injury; his jaw was fractured in two places and he lost a number of teeth.
[6]        Mr Feki was wielding the golf club. He subsequently pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do so. That has given rise to a discrete ground of appeal in relation to the two appellants which we will deal with later in this judgment.
[7]        The Crown case against Mr Ma’u and Mr Redman rested exclusively upon s 66(2) of the Crimes Act 1961. It was that these two appellants were members of this group, which was intent upon inflicting violence on those present at the Auckland address; and that each of these appellants foresaw as a probable consequence of the prosecution of that purpose the type of offending that in fact occurred. The Crown ran its case this way because…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading R v Ma'u

Details

AGLC: R v Ma'u [2008] NZCA 117
Case: [2008] NZCA 117
Decision Date: 5 May 2008

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of R v Ma'u and Redman involves appeals against convictions by the appellants, Semisi Ma'u and Tyson Redman, following a violent assault on a group of party-goers in Auckland. The primary legal issue in the case was whether the trial judge's directions to the jury on party liability under s 66(2) of the Crimes Act 1961 were adequate and whether there was sufficient evidence to support the convictions. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals, finding that the trial judge's directions were sufficient and that the evidence supported the jury's verdicts.

The Court of Appeal examined various aspects of the trial, including the handling of guilty pleas by some co-accused in the presence of the jury, the identification of the principal offender in relation to a specific assault, the admissibility of statements made by the appellants during police interviews, and the reliability of key witnesses. The court found no merit in the arguments presented by the appellants' counsel and concluded that the trial judge's directions and the evidence presented were sufficient to support the jury's verdicts. The appeals against conviction were therefore dismissed, and the application for an extension of time to appeal against Redman's sentence was also dismissed.

Orders