Tauranga District Court<\/a> relate to what happened after Fox sustained his critical injuries.<\/p>\nAccording to the Crown summary of facts, the men had Fox lying injured in the back of a car as they made their way to Rotorua Hospital.<\/p>\n
They were in two cars, and, on the way, they stopped. <\/p>\n
Beale, who police say is the captain of the Hawke\u2019s Bay Mongrel Mob MC chapter, told the others to \u201clie and say that Mr Taikato Fox had been hit by a car\u201d.<\/p>\n
The others agreed, and together they \u201ccame up with a story to tell the police\u201d.<\/p>\n
When they arrived at the Rotorua Hospital, they stopped for a few minutes in a staff carpark, before continuing to the hospital\u2019s emergency entrance.<\/p>\n
Beale, and the man who has interim name suppression, went inside to get help.<\/p>\n
The summary notes that \u201cthe defendants were all aware that Mr Taikato Fox had died when they arrived at the hospital\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fox was pronounced dead shortly upon arrival, and police came to the hospital and spoke to the defendants, all of whom provided written statements.<\/p>\n
Heard a \u2018thudding noise\u2019, said Beale<\/p>\n
Beale told police he had gone to Maketu to \u201cdeal with some personal stuff between him and his friends\u201d, and, while heading back to Rotorua with Fox in his car, and the others in convoy, they pulled over about 15 minutes out of Rotorua, so the occupants \u201ccould urinate\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told police he heard a \u201cthudding\u201d noise and saw Fox lying in a ditch on the side of the road, and that he was \u201cpretty damaged and injured\u201d but still breathing and muttering, \u201cOh mighty\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Rolling around and moaning,\u2019 said Nicholson<\/p>\n
Nicholson told police he had been driving in convoy, and saw the other vehicle had stopped, so he stopped too.<\/p>\n
He said he saw Fox \u201con the ground rolling around and moaning\u201d, and told police that Beale had told him Fox had been hit by a car.<\/p>\n
He said he helped get Fox into the back of his Nissan, and took him to Rotorua Hospital.<\/p>\n
Third man said he saw \u2018speeding vehicle approaching\u2019<\/p>\n
The third man said they\u2019d been at a rugby game in Maket\u016b which finished around 5.30pm, and they left in convoy.<\/p>\n
He said that, about 10 minutes after leaving, they pulled over so the occupants of the cars could urinate.<\/p>\n
He said he was back in his car and saw a \u201cspeeding vehicle approaching\u201d, followed by a \u201cbig bang\u201d, and then saw Fox lying on the side of the road unconscious.<\/p>\n
He said he felt for a pulse but couldn\u2019t feel anything, and he lifted Fox into one of the cars.<\/p>\n
All three of the formal written statements, signed by the defendants, were false.<\/p>\n
When police spoke to hospital staff, they confirmed that the injuries observed were \u201cnot consistent with Mr Taikato Fox having been hit with a car\u201d.<\/p>\n
All three later admitted to police that they made false statements and have now formally entered guilty pleas.<\/p>\n
They will be sentenced in the Tauranga District Court on June 26.<\/p>\n
The allegations that relate to Fox\u2019s death will be the subject of a murder trial, expected to take place in 2028.<\/p>\n
Twelve defendants have been charged with murder, including Valentine \u201cPop\u201d Nicholas, 64, who the Crown alleges is the president of the Maket\u016b chapter of the Mongrel Mob.<\/p>\n
Others charged include George Alan Perham, 54, Colin Kiriona, 41, Nathaniel Thompson, 29, and Valentine Kemp, 39. <\/p>\n
Some of those charged still have interim suppression orders in place for legal reasons, and one is a youth who was arrested in Whanganui.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zain Matenga Taikato Fox, 20, died from critical injuries at Rotorua Hospital in July last year. Damien Richard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,634,16843,81549,3368,42,1446,4754,4281,4280,43,116821,5347,98141,1529,61,40,38,41,39,1415],"class_list":["post-265173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-death","tag-false","tag-foxs","tag-guilty","tag-headlines","tag-making","tag-members","tag-mob","tag-mongrel","tag-news","tag-plead","tag-statements","tag-taikato","tag-three","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-zain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}