Constable who Liked Young Guys, Seems To Have Been Killed by One

 By Hayley Hannan  

A trial has started for the murder of a 59-year-old policeman. File photo / NZ Herald

A drunk 16-year-old allegedly stabbed a gay policeman before running down the road yelling "I killed someone", the Crown says.

A trial began this morning for the murder of Denis Norman Phillips at the High Court in Auckland.

The 59-year-old policeman was found dead in his Papakura one-bedroom flat on 31 July 2010, the day after he was stabbed four times with a serrated knife.

Willie John Ahsee, now 17, is on trial for the murder and pleaded not guilty.

Crown prosecutor June Jelas made an opening statement to the jury today, describing the background to the night of the stabbing.

"I suggest to you this isn't going to be a case of whodunnit, the real issue will be what the accused had in his mind," she said.

Cop Had hit on Alleged Murderer Mate:

A former classmate of murder accused Willie Ahsee has told a High Court jury he was sitting outside a bar in Papakura when he first met gay off-duty police officer Denis Norman Phillips.

Ahsee, 17, is on trial for the murder of 59-year-old Phillips in July 2010.

In court yesterday, Ahsee's 16-year-old former classmate said Phillips walked out of the bar into the midday sun and struck up a conversation with him, inviting the youth back to his Green St unit for drinks.

The teenager told the jury in the High Court in Auckland that he knew he wasn't going to Phillips' house for a cup of tea but to drink alcohol.

''I told him yeah, why not.''

After doing a two-hour weights workout in Phillips' converted garage, the two sat around drinking a vodka-based RTD and red wine.

''He told me I'd be safe around him. I believed him.''

He told the jury he did not know, and  Phillips did not tell him, that he worked for the police.

Around an hour-and-a-half later Phillips put his hand on his thigh for about ''two seconds'' and started rubbing.

The teenager said he asked Phillips if he was gay but ''he didn't say nothing".

Phillips removed his hands and the teen said he wasn't offended so they carried on talking and drinking.

Much later, feeling ''pretty drunk'' the youth declined Phillips' offer to make him a bed so he could stay the night and walked home, pocketing the $10 Phillips had given him for a taxi.

A few weeks later the teenager introduced Phillips to his classmate Ahsee.

The Crown contests that Phillips was stabbed four times with a serrated knife and that the fatal blow was a stab to the neck that severed his arteries.

Phillips was a temporary sworn officer who had worked for police for 12 years as a jailer in the Manukau police cells.

The court has been told that Phillips, who was known in the Auckland gay community, was sexually attracted to young males and ''from time to time'' made physical advances towards them that included touching.

Ahsee's lawyer, David Jones QC, said his client accepted that he was the person who stabbed Phillips in the neck but the ''fundamental'' thing it had to consider were the circumstances that confronted Ahsee when he inflicted the wound.

Jones said the jury had to ''look from his perspective, his intent'' and think about issues concerning a 16-year-old boy.

He said it was what was going through Ahsee's mind that was fundamental.

Justice Raynor Asher and a jury of six men and six women will hear from more than 70 witnesses over three weeks.

 Mr Phillips was working for the New Zealand police at the time as a temporary constable, sworn in to work as a 'jailer'.

Ahsee lived within walking distance of the policeman, and described the older man as his boxing coach whom he would regularly visit to work out with in a converted garage gym.

Neighbours told police they heard two voices and a series of "banging, thumping" noises coming from the usually quiet house, said Ms Jelas.

"A voice said something along the lines of 'Have you had enough ... or I have had enough."

An alarmed neighbour called the police at 10:14pm after Ahsee was heard "yelling and screaming" on his way home, including yells of "I killed someone."

The teenager returned to his family home "emotional and intoxicated" and smashed two windows, so his mother asked police to keep him overnight to detox.

The next day Ahsee confessed to his mother he had stabbed the policeman, and he went to a police station.

"He admits to stabbing the deceased but he said he can't remember anything about it. He can't say what was in his mind," Ms Jelas said.

Police then went round to the Papakura address and found Mr Phillips face down on "heavily bloodstained" hallway carpet. Blood was also splattered throughout the kitchen, lounge, dining room and bathroom and across various appliances, chattels and clothing.

Ms Jelas described Mr Phillips as a gay man who liked young men and was known to proposition them "so to speak".

Police records show Ahsee denied any sexual or physical contact with the policeman, she said.

Ms Jelas also pointed out a pair of blue shorts with the accused's saliva on the crotch area in evidence photos.

The deceased's laptop and cellphone were taken from his house and the laptop was found in Ahsee's family home, while cellphone records traced Ahsee's family using the stolen cellphone days after the death.

The trial is set down to take three weeks.

- APNZ