At the start of a trial in the High Court at Rotorua today, Crown solicitor Anna Pollett said that in the lead-up to his death, Shrimpton had got himself into a “significant amount of debt while also trying to maintain his addiction”.
“ … It became all the more serious with a debt to the gang,” Pollett said in her opening address.
Shrimpton was allegedly kidnapped by Piripi Tukaokao, a now-23-year-old patched Greazy Dogs MC member, also known as “Pids”, who had been trying to retrieve money owed.
The specific amount owed wasn’t clear, but Pollett said it was thought to be between $2000 and $5000.
Pollet told the jury that after kidnapping Shrimpton from a McDonald’s, Tukaokao took him to his remote property in Poripori, which was surrounded by trees and bush, and there he shot him.
“He says despite threatening him, despite robbing his flatmate, and despite kidnapping Harley Shrimpton, and having earlier sourced a firearm and loading it, it was an accident,” Pollett said.
“And in fact, not only did he admit to shooting him, he took the police to where Harley Shrimpton had been buried. But for this admission and guiding the police to the body, Mr Shrimpton’s body may never have been located.”
‘Go, go, go’: Shrimpton thought he’d escaped but was tracked down at a McDonald’s, Crown says
The Crown case is that Tukaokao first tried to track Shrimpton down, to get the money owed, by going to his former flat, along with co-defendant Tuara Heke, who is 21.
Tuara Heke, 21, and Piripi Tukaokao, 23, faces charges related to the kidnapping, death and burial of Harley Shrimpton, who was 28 when he died.
The Crown said Shrimpton had been “burying his head in the sand” and had not been responding to messages from Tukaokao about the money he owed.
The Crown alleges Tukaokao and Heke arrived in the early hours of the morning on November 3, 2023, wearing gloves and masks, and knocked on the door of Shrimpton’s former flat. It was opened by the “terrified” flatmate, who told them Shrimpton had moved out.
Heke denies being the second man in attendance.
The Crown says the pair didn’t believe him and had a look around, but when they didn’t find Shrimpton, they allegedly demanded the flatmate hand over his phone and provide the passcode.
“The defendant, Mr Tukaokao, told [him] that if he talked about the home invasion, they would be back to put him in a box,” Pollett said.
The pair took the phone and Tukaokao allegedly used it to “lure” Shrimpton to meet at a carpark at Sulphur Point in Tauranga.
Thinking he was meeting up with his former flatmate, Shrimpton went there in a car with a couple of his friends.
The Crown says Tukaokao arrived in a blue Toyota Prius, parked and walked over, then tried to open the driver’s side rear passenger door, where Shrimpton was seated.
“Recognising he had been lured into a trap and in a panic, Mr Shrimpton yelled at his friends to ‘go, go, go’.”
Later that afternoon, as he drove along Maunganui Rd, Tukaokao spotted the car Shrimpton had been in parked at the Mount Maunganui McDonald’s and drove “very quickly into the carpark”.
He then “parked the blue Prius he was still driving in front of the vehicle Harley Shrimpton was in, still with the same two friends, ensuring their vehicle was blocked and unable to escape”.
Harley Shrimpton’s body was recovered by police in December 2023.
While Shrimpton initially refused to go with him, Tukaokao’s threats allegedly increased and Tukaokao also began direct them towards Shrimpton’s friends.
“The car being boxed in and not wanting to get his friends harmed, Mr Shrimpton realised he had no choice but to follow Mr Tukaokao’s demands,” Pollett said.
He “reluctantly” got into the front passenger seat of the blue Prius.
Tukaokao had already sourced a “loaded single-barrel semi-automatic shotgun”, and the Crown says he had left it in the Poripori property’s shed.
The Crown says he and his family had earlier moved out of the Poripori address and the house was vacant.
The firearm had been obtained from a Greazy Dogs MC gang prospect named Terrence Hayes.
Shrimpton was led to the shed, where Tukaokao allegedly used the shotgun to shoot Shrimpton once in the chest.
The Crown says the shot was not survivable, and Shrimpton was left on the shed floor, while Tukaokao headed back into town.
It’s alleged that Tukaokao picked up Heke, who went with him back to Poripori, where they wrapped Shrimpton’s body in a tarpaulin and moved his body into a ”freshly dug” hole, 2m deep by 1m wide.
“The defendants then destroyed items of the deceased’s clothing and his cell phone before washing down the shed with bleach and water,” Pollett said.
After being arrested for Shrimpton’s kidnapping, Tukaokao initially chose not to speak to police.
Pollett said in the course of another interview, however, he told them another story, before he eventually said he “wanted to show the police where the deceased was and that he had shot him, but it was an accident”.
He took the police to where Shrimpton’s body was buried, and on December 5, 2023, Shrimpton’s body was recovered by police.
Tukaokao faces charges of murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery, all of which he denies.
Heke, on the morning of trial, pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact, which related to the shed clean-up, however, he denies assisting Tukaokao to move the body.
Heke also denies the aggravated robbery of Shrimpton’s flatmate.
On the morning of trial, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice, by arranging for his sister to leave the country to avoid speaking to police about what she knew.
A suicide note from the supplier of the gun
After Shrimpton’s death, Tukaokao returned the shotgun to gang prospect Terrence Hayes and instructed him to get rid of it.
The Crown said in opening that Hayes later took his own life and left a suicide note that said, “Pids got the gun from me. I left it in the back seat of my car.”
The note, which Pollett read to the jury, went on to say Hayes had “no idea what his intentions were and what I was getting myself involved in”.
“When I asked for it back and got no reply I knew something was wrong.”
The note went on to give directions to where the gun had been disposed of.
“If you follow the track down the bottom there’s old bridge to cross to get to the water. On the left in the swamp is where the fun is.”
The note concludes: “F*** you Pids”.
Defence says the death was an accident
Tukaokao is represented by Rebekah Webby and Nicholas Dutch, and in her opening statement, Webby said her client had not done an “aggravated robbery” of the flatmate, as there had been no violence.
As to the alleged murder, she said the Crown had no witnesses to what happened in the shed; they only had what Tukaokao told police.
“He says it should never have happened the way it happened,” Webby said, telling the jury that Tukaokao had later wanted to make things right by taking police to where the body was.
She reminded the jury to keep an open mind.
For Heke, counsel Bill Nabney said in opening that his client had admitted to the involvement he’d had – he had assisted with cleaning up the shed, but had nothing to do with moving the body.
He also denied being the second man involved in the visit to Shrimpton’s flatmate and the taking of the cellphone.
The trial, before Justice Simon Mount, is set down for four weeks.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.