Wed 19 Oct 2011 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Denis Phillips (left) and Willie Ahsee (right) Willie Ahsee was teary-eyed in the dock as he was found not guilty of murder and instead guilty of the manslaughter of gay man Denis Phillips, by a jury at the High Court in Auckland. Ahsee's mother was also emotional outside court, after working hard on being stoic throughout the trial of her 17-year-old son, who killed 59-year-old gay police jailer Denis Phillips in his Papakura home last July. She said she was happy with the verdict and relieved her son was remanded back into CYF care before his sentencing in December, meaning she will be able to see him. Two of Phillips' family members, who sat through the entire trial, including the most grisly evidence and repeated statements about Phillips' "liking" for young men, did not wish to comment after the verdicts. The jury reached its verdicts in just four hours, matching the speed of the trial which was initially set down for three weeks and lasted just a week and a half. The eleven jurors rejected the Crown's assertion Ahsee had murderous intent when he stabbed Phillips in the head on a night they had been drinking together. It also rejected the defence arguments that Ahsee's action in swinging a knife around and connecting with the older man's head, cutting through his earlobe, slicing cleanly through a small bone and severing his artery, was either accidental or self-defence. If it had agreed with either of these defence claims it was instructed to also have found Ahsee not guilty of manslaughter. On the stand the teenager claimed Phillips, an openly-gay man who was stated by both the Crown and defence to have had a 'liking' for young men, had touched his thigh trying to get to his "nut" that night, before touching his ear. He said both times he batted Phillips' hand away. In giving evidence he said he was extremely drunk and had blank spots from the night, and only grabbed the knife after being somehow knocked over in the kitchen as Phillips shouted at him. Ahsee said he just wanted to get out of the house and go home, but a fight ensued and he stabbed Phillips a total of four times in the upper body, with the initial stab wound Phillips' suffered in the kitchen proving fatal and becoming the key issue for the jury. Ahsee's defence lawyer David Jones QC told GayNZ.com Daily News after the trial that even if the provocation or 'gay panic' defence was still in existence, he would have been unlikely to have used it as it requires a loss of self-control, which he asserts did not happen in this case, pointing out the movement which cause the fatal wound was a momentary action. Justice Asher has ordered Ahsee that will be sentenced on 15 December, which is six days before the teenager's 18th birthday.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 19th October 2011 - 7:24pm