Murder trial starts for Ōpōtiki cold case killing of Brian Hilton
July 5, 2021
"I probably went there and pushed him over or kicked him ... I'm not going to lie."
Those were the words Harry Clements Matchitt told police in an interview two years after Brian Albert Hilton, 77, died after being assaulted in his Ōpōtiki home.
Matchitt, 52, is on trial in the High Court at Tauranga for murdering Hilton on July 7, 2016. The Crown says Hilton died after he was punched, stomped and kicked in the attack.
It will be the defence's case that it wasn't Matchitt who assaulted Hilton and therefore he couldn't be guilty of his murder.
July 7, 2021
About a month before he was found in his Ōpōtiki home with injuries that would later claim his life, Brian Hilton phoned his carer, Alan Putt.
“You’ve got to come over. That mad bastard [name suppressed] is trying to get in.”
Putt was giving evidence in the High Court at Tauranga on the second day of the murder trial of Harry Matchitt, 52, the man accused of murdering Hilton in 2016.
Under questioning from defence lawyer Caitlin Gentleman, Putt also told the jury of 10 men and two women, the police had asked him to look over Hilton’s home.
He said he believed a blanket he found in the lounge belonged to the man Hilton had phoned about earlier.
Murder trial: James McFarlane stabbed brother-in-law Thunder Savage in fight over noise
May 17, 2021
A verbal fight between brothers-in-law over noise ended when one plunged a knife 20cm into the chest of the other man, killing him within minutes.
James McFarlane Snr is standing trial in the High Court at Rotorua for the murder of Thunder Savage at a family home in Edgecumbe in the Eastern Bay of Plenty on October 2, 2019.
It is the defence's case that McFarlane Snr was protecting his son from Savage.
In a brief opening address to the jury, defence lawyer Caitlin Gentleman said the case related to a fast-moving situation.
"Mr Macfarlane accepts he stabbed Mr Savage but he says he was acting in defence of his son."
She said the jury would need to consider whether the force was reasonable.