Motive of Why A Gay Cop Was Killed

IMOGEN NEALE



The jury in a murder trial has been asked to think like a 16-year-old boy when considering what led a south Auckland teenager to fatally stab a gay off-duty police officer in the neck. Willie John Ahsee, 17, is on trial in the High Court in Auckland for the murder of 59-year-old Denis Norman Phillips in July last year.

The Crown contends that Phillips was stabbed four times in his Papakura home with a serrated knife. 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.

He was also 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 had meet Phillips about a month before the alleged murder and described him to police as his "boxing trainer".

Today Ahsee's lawyer, David Jones QC, told the jury his client accepted 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 his mind that was fundamental.

The questions of murderous intent and self defence were also key issues Jones said.

Yesterday the jury heard that within minutes of allegedly stabbing Phillips, Ahsee was heard yelling and screaming as he walked towards his family home.

In her opening address Crown prosecutor June Jelas said one of the things Ahsee was heard to yell was "I have killed someone".

She said a neighbour was so concerned by what they heard, they called police.

When police arrived they found an intoxicated Ahsee had smashed two bedroom windows.

When asked if he'd killed someone, he'd shrugged his shoulders and said "nah".

The next day, after telling his mother he couldn't remember what had happened, Ahsee took police to Phillips' Green St unit where his body lay face down on heavily bloodstained carpet.

She told the jury it wasn't a case of "whodunnit" but a question of what the accused had in his mind when he stabbed Phillips.

A jury of six men and six women will hear from more than 70 witnesses over three weeks.

 - Auckland Now

 

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