Mon 17 Oct 2011 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Willie Ahsee 11.50AM: The teenager accused of murdering gay Papakura man Denis Phillips has taken the stand and told of rejecting the older man’s advances twice as they drank at his house, and ultimately grabbing a nearby knife and “swinging it around” when he was knocked to the ground in Phillips' kitchen. The accused Willie Ahsee is now 17, but was 16, the legal age of consent, when he stabbed Phillips on 30 July last year. The teenager has taken the stand in his own defence, recalling he had gone to Phillips’ house to work out in his home gym, and after a few hours of doing so the pair sat and drank from a cask of red wine, tequila and a bourbon mix called Big Foot. Ahsee told the court they were getting along talking about Phillips being in the army, about training and about famous rugby players. He said he thought he was “all good”. He went on to say Phillips tried to “touch my nut,” by which he means testicles, “He was moving his hand on my thighs and that”. Ahsee said he hit his hand away and they got back to drinking, then Phillips touched his earlobe and he batted his hand away once again. He said Phillips then went to his room and he went into the kitchen to get a bottle opener, and when he opened the draw he pulled it out. “It just flew out when I pulled it open,” he said. “I must have just yanked it out.” The drawer ended up on the floor and Ahsee said bent over and started picking the cutlery up. “Denis started shouting and that, and he kicked me or punched me or pushed me over or something,” Ahsee said, saying he didn’t know which but he “just fell over” and “I just picked up anything that was on the floor and then swinged it around.” When asked by his defence lawyer David Jones what he picked up he said “I think it was a knife”, which was just beside him on the floor. “I thought he was going to attack me, he was yelling and he pushed me over.” His defence lawyer David Jones earlier told the court the defence contends this was when the fatal wound was incurred, with Phillips stabbed through the neck severing a major artery. “What you have is a 16-year-old boy in a situation with a 59-year-old man,” his defence lawyer David Jones QC earlier said. “He was the subject of the attentions of Denis Phillips is a sexual way,” he continued. “He was indecently assaulted at Phillips’ house.” The trial continues at the High Court in Auckland. GayNZ.com's in-court coverage will continue throughout each day of the trial.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 17th October 2011 - 11:49am