Tue 18 Oct 2011 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Denis Phillips was stabbed in his home in July 2010 2.30PM: Closing arguments are being heard in the case of a teenager accused of murdering gay temporary-sworn police officer Denis Phillips. The jury, which has been reduced to 11 people, is set to retire tomorrow after Justice Asher sums up at the High Court in Auckland. Earlier the Crown finished cross-examining the accused Willie Ahsee, 17, who fatally stabbed Phillips in the older man’s Papakura home in July 2010. “You intended to stab Mr Phillips in the side of the head didn’t you?” Crown Prosecutor David Johnstone asked Ahsee, to which he replied “No”. “Did you mean to kill him?” he continued, to which Ahsee also responded “No”, the same response he had to the question “Did you mean to hurt him so he may end up dying?” “I just wanted to get out of the house, I didn’t mean to stab him,” the teenager asked why he had stabbed the older man. A defence witness, a young man whose name is suppressed, told the court of meeting Phillips and chatting to him a number of times, before being invited over for dinner. He recalled turning up with a bottle of wine for his host and being surprised he didn’t have a wife and family. He asked whether he had a wife and kids and said Phillips replied “no I’m still single”. The witness, who had never drank alcohol before, recalled turning down Phillips’ offers of alcohol a number of times before he felt bad and agreed to have a drink, after his host said “come on man you’ve got to have a drink with me” and that he was a big boy now and could have a drink and some fun. The man drank a number of glasses of alcohol and when he decided he wanted to go home Phillips said “no you’re not driving home tonight, you’re too drunk, you’re sleeping at my house”. The witness said he eventually felt sick and threw up in the toilet. He recalled when he came out of the toilet Phillips was not in the lounge, and when he called to him his host responded from the bedroom. “I went there and he was already half naked. He had his underpants on but he was half naked on the top. He told me to take off my clothes and come into bed with him.” The man said he protested that he would sleep in the lounge or spare bedroom but eventually stripped down to his singlet and underpants and got into bed and “passed out”. He recalled waking up the next morning with Phillips sleeping with his right leg over his though. “He was almost lying on top of me, he was really close to me. I felt really weird about that. It was my first time sleeping at his house and I’m in bed with him.” The man got up and went home. Phillips would visit him at his workplace over the next couple of weeks and invited him over again, to which the witness eventually agreed on the grounds that he would not drink, which he said Phillips agreed to. However he told the court when he turned up Phillips had a bottle of alcohol he’d bought especially and while he initially protested, he and Phillips ended up drinking two and a half bottles of alcohol and playing a ‘dare’ game. The witness said he would play the game as long as he was not getting naked, however when he lost a round Phillips made him strip down and do press ups. The man took off everything other than his underpants, which he refused to take off. The rest of the night proceeded the same as the previous visit, with the witness saying he once again became ill and while he threw up Phillips was stripping down in his bedroom. He again passed out and when he woke up Phillips’ leg was on his thigh and his arm was around the shoulder. The only third time he went to Phillips’ house was to get his car, and the man told the court he refused to drink or stay over and was only inside for ten minutes. He said Phillips was fine with his refusal. The final time he went to Phillips’ house was after he heard he had died. The trial continues at the High Court in Auckland.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 18th October 2011 - 2:23pm