Brief court appearance

The third complainant in the Queenstown kidnapping case is Joseph Armstrong, the Invercargill District Court heard yesterday.

Police have charged three men with seriously assaulting Mr Armstrong.

One of the accused, Pita William Hapourona Wilson (38), stonemason, of Glenorchy, made a brief appearance before Judge Gary MacAskill yesterday.

He faces four charges - unlawfully detaining Mr Armstrong at Queenstown between November 25 and 30; wounding Mr Armstrong with intent to cause grievous bodily harm on November 28 at Queenstown; unlawfully detaining Casey Johnston and Andrew Lee in Queenstown on November 27-29; and a representative charge of supplying the class A drug methamphetamine between November 22 and December 3.

Duty solicitor John Fraser said Wilson was not pleading to any of the charges yesterday or applying for bail.

Judge MacAskill remanded him in custody to appear in the Queenstown District Court on January 12.

Wilson's co-accused, Joshua Veint (23) and Mark Junior Taylor (17), have also appeared in court in recent days.

Veint has been remanded in custody and Taylor is on bail.

Four other people, three women and a man, are also facing charges including drug possession and helping Wilson to avoid arrest.

 

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