4.00PM: The two police officers first to arrive at Ron Brown's home have described the bloody scene of the attack, their distress at being unable to assist the badly beaten elderly gay man, and the extremely agitated behaviour of the man subsequently accused of his murder. Ronald Brown The officers were this afternoon presenting evidence at the depositions hearing into the circumstances of Brown's death in early December last year. Ferdinand Ambach, a tourist whom Brown had met at a nearby Onehunga, Auckland, bar earlier in the evening, is charged with murder, assault and intentional damage. The two police officers, responding to a 111 call from neighbours, failed to see any problems on their first arrival at the scene half an hour after midnight. They left, but returned to Mariere Road around 1am to find neighbours pointing down a driveway at Brown's house. As they neared the building, the officers say, they heard a male voice yelling and glass shattering. They then observed broken windows and a man pacing back and forth upstairs. They say the man was throwing clothing down into the backyard and that he also threw a mattress through a broken window into the front yard. They say he was shouting in a foreign language and was very agitated. While the officers called for backup and a dog handler, they told this afternoon's hearing, they observed the man throwing a torch, wood, a cushion and other items from the upstairs window. As they entered Brown's home they saw a broken glass door, water dripping down from the floor above and Ron Brown propped against a wall at the bottom of the stairs. He appeared unconscious, with a piece of what they took to be part of a broken banjo neck in his mouth. "It seemed deliberately placed," the officers said in their evidence. Blood was splattered on the walls around Brown. He had deep lacerations on his forehead, what appeared to be a broken cheekbone, and bruised eyes and lips. They say Brown was still breathing, but in "short, difficult" breaths. They could smell alcohol. The stairs appeared "barricaded" with household items including a computer monitor. Using a curtain which had been torn from its track, the male and female officers improvised a stretcher and removed Brown from the house. Fearing they would be attacked by the agitated man, the officers say they tried to squirt pepper spray upstairs, to no avail. Eventually the man calmed down a little, they told the hearing, and police officers were able to coax him downstairs. However, once outside the house the man became more upset and eventually required "five or six" officers to subdue and handcuff him. Meanwhile, Brown was losing "a substantial amount of blood" and the officers this afternoon described their distress at being unable to stop the bleeding until medical help arrived. Throughout the hearing a translator has been providing simultaneous translation of the proceedings to Ambach, who has remained generally calm, though he occasionally appeared impatient. The translator is currently translating the large amount of written evidence presented to the two JPs hearing the depositions. Although set down for three days, it now appears possible the hearing could wind up tomorrow afternoon after more witnesses have given their evidence in person.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 9th July 2008 - 3:35pm