Ihaia Gillman-Harris The defence for the two young men charged with murdering Ihaia Gillman-Harris has identified three "key issues" in his summing up of the case for the Jury at the High Court at Auckland. "Was there a weapon taken into the motel room by the boys," he said in reference to cctv footage from the Ascot motel in Auckland on the morning Gillman-Harris is said by the crown to have been murdered by by Leonard Battrass-Bergquist and Beauen Wallace-Loretz. The pair were captured on camera arriving with Gillman-Harris and leaving in his Range Rover without him approximately half an hour later. The defense said there was clearly no weapon taken to the room. The money, the defense says, was the second key to the case. "What was the intention with the money" which Gillman-Harris is understood to have and which it appears the youths took after the altercation. The defense asked the jury to consider whether it was really to be used to pay for a sex act, if Gillman-Harris was seeking consent or whether he was to take sexual advantage of of one or both of the accused. The third key is, the defense suggested, was "did [Gillman-Harris] have the ability to be violent." He said Gillman-Harris was motivated by "an obsession to get them into a motel" by themselves.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 19th April 2016 - 9:47am