High Court jurors have been told they need to be sure the man who killed a Nelson police officer had murderous intent when he drove at her to find him guilty of murder.
Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming and Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay were on foot patrol in Buxton Square in the early hours of New Year's Day last year when they were hit by a car driven by Hayden Tasker.
Tasker, 33, was on trial in Christchurch for murdering Fleming and seriously injuring Ramsay. The jury retired to consider its verdict shortly before 12.30pm on Monday.
Tasker's defence argued he was drunk and depressed and crashed into the officers in a failed attempt to take his own life.
The Crown argued Tasker was motivated by anger towards the police and intentionally used his car as a weapon to mow them down.
In summing up, Justice Cameron Mander told the jury to put emotion aside in reaching a verdict.
"Feelings of sympathy for the deceased and her family are inevitably aroused but you must simply put such feelings to one side," he said.
"Similarly you need to put aside feelings of prejudice or shock that may have been engendered in you from in some respects being eyewitnesses to Senior Sergeant Fleming's death as a result of viewing the CCTV and other video footage.
"Any negative feelings or for that matter sympathetic feelings you may have for Mr Tasker's living situation or the way he was living his life at the time similarly need to be put to one side."
Over two weeks the jury heard from more than 40 witnesses including members of the public and police officers who were in the central Nelson car park at the time of the crash.
Mander told jurors they needed to be sure Tasker had murderous intent when he hit Fleming with his car.
"It is not disputed that Senior Sergeant Fleming's death resulted from Mr Tasker driving his vehicle in a dangerous manner," he said.
The Crown and the defence gave their closing arguments on Friday.
A 'grandiose fantasy'
Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber told the jury Fleming was "senselessly and needlessly" killed when Tasker deliberately used his Honda Odyssey as a weapon, accelerating as hard as he could towards the officers at an estimated speed of 45kmh, shortly after 2am.
"Hayden Tasker sitting in his car, drinking wine saw the two police officers. He watched them. He was angry at the police and he made a series of conscious decisions. To start his car, to leave his headlights off, to pull out of that parking space and manoeuvre his car around to the south, then to the west to accelerate, to drive straight into Lynn Fleming and Adam Ramsay," he said.
Webber said the pair had done nothing to provoke or antagonise Tasker, apart from the fact that they were police officers in uniform.
"They were on duty, doing their job, keeping others safe and ironically, one of the risks that they had been considering that night was the risk of a vehicle intrusion attack," he said.
Webber said Tasker's actions did not fit the claim that he did not intend to hurt or kill the officers but wanted to take his own life.
"[He] didn't stop, he didn't jump out to see what had happened or to check on the people he had just hit," he said.
Tasker's behaviour during and after the collisions was inconsistent with a suicide attempt, he said.
"It was going to be glorious, like a movie. It was a rather grandiose fantasy that he might talk about, but had no real intention of ever carrying out," he said.
'Despicable' behaviour doesn't make Tasker a murderer - Defence
Defence lawyer Marcus Zintl said the crash was a "terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy" that "should not have happened".
Tasker had already admitted three charges of dangerous driving.
Zintil said Tasker was driven by a desire to end his own life in a police chase rather than intending to kill or hurt police.
"He was suicidal, he was on medication for depression, he was living in his car," Zintl told the jury.
"He was alone, he had no close family support and virtually no actual friends."
Zintl said Tasker's father died when he was 16. His long-time girlfriend had recently dumped him, he was unemployed, on a benefit and had nothing going for him.
"He wanted to end the painful, pointlessness and pitifulness of his life that he was experiencing at that time, which is why he wanted to end up himself in a police chase," he said.
Zintl said Tasker "drank himself silly" with a bottle-and-a-half of red wine, he was three-and-a-half times over the breath alcohol limit and filled his car with petrol before arriving in the car park that night.
The first collision, when Tasker drove into Fleming and Ramsay, happened six seconds after he started his car.
The second collision, when he rammed the white police patrol car, was around 26 seconds later in what Zintl said was a moment of madness, desperation, stupidity and empty-headedness.
The court was earlier played footage of Tasker's first police interview around 11 hours after the crash.
Zintl said Tasker's state of mind could be ascertained from his admission to police in that interview.
"I didn't think of the consequences. I was in a bad headspace but that doesn't give me an excuse," Tasker said.
The jury saw how he broke down in tears and vomited during that interview after learning Fleming had died.
Tasker said it "should have been me that died that day".
"I never thought I'd kill anyone... didn't really think it through," he said in the interview.
Zintl told the jury Tasker's actions were "despicable, deplorable and dreadful" but that did not make him guilty of murder.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz |  |
