A jury in the Wellington High Court has found three men guilty of a brutal and fatal attack on Wairarapa man Paul Irons last spring. Brutally murdered: Paul Irons Irons, 36, was found in the early hours of 9 October 2008, bloodied and partly naked with serious head injuries in Featherston's Triangle Park. He died when his life support was turned off five days later. Emails received by GayNZ.com just after Irons' death suggested he was gay and the attack had been a hate crime. However, last October Irons' father vehemently and publicly denied his son was homosexual, saying "I can assure you he was not gay, he had a lot of girlfriends but he did have gay friends." In emotional scenes in court yesterday, Shaun Sullivan, 25, was found guilty of murder, along with 16-year-old Rangitera Walker. Andrew Dean Kupa-Caudwell got the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Thursday, 3rd December 2009 - 8:20am