Tupaea Kerr appears in the High Court at Auckland in November 2024 accused of murdering ex-partner Charlie Josephine Watson in Glen Eden, West Auckland. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are the odds that if you threaten to stab someone\u2019s throat, you then accidentally do that very same thing the next day?\u201d Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson asked during her closing address yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to think of a more obvious and compelling case… The evidence you have before you is quite simply overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Accidental stabbing?<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Arthur Fairley begged to differ. He urged jurors to \u201cpocket\u201d their emotions and reach a decision with their minds rather than their hearts. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no question this man was a horrible partner,\u201d Fairley said. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that this man was a jealous partner. There\u2019s no question that this man was verbally abusive and violent.<\/p>\n
Charlie Josephine Watson was fatally stabbed in the neck after years of abuse at the hands of Tupaea Kerr. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept all that stuff the Crown says. But look, this is not a family court case.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crux of the case, he argued, was whether prosecutors Paterson and Faisal Ganchi had adequately proved Kerr had ill intent when he pierced the knife through Watson\u2019s voice box on the evening of November 3, 2024. <\/p>\n
It was a \u201cdynamic\u201d situation in which the two were moving around as they tussled, Fairley said, suggesting the wound could have just as easily been accidental. <\/p>\n
Kerr declined to give evidence, but Fairley said jurors could infer it was an accident because of Kerr\u2019s 111 call minutes after the stabbing and the fact there was only one fatal wound. <\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Arthur Fairley. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
While his client had a propensity for \u201cbrutal hidings\u201d, he did not have a propensity for stabbing the victim, the lawyer said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a bully boy who used a knife … not to kill but to intimidate,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re too late. For everything.\u2019<\/p>\n
But prosecutors argued Kerr had made his intentions clear. About 23 hours before her death, Watson had pushed a family harm alarm in her Glen Eden home. <\/p>\n
The alarm triggered an automatic recording. In it, Watson could be heard talking to someone else about the abuse, explaining that one of her children had been traumatised upon hearing Kerr threaten to cut Watson\u2019s throat. <\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson. Photo \/ Sam Hurley<\/p>\n
But when police showed up, Watson lied to protect Kerr. The final day of her life was filled with calls and texts with her partner, as she tried to smooth things over and he issued veiled and not-so-veiled threats. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re too late,\u201d he wrote at one point. \u201cFor everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The interaction that morning frightened Watson to the point where she decided to draft a goodbye message to her children on her phone. <\/p>\n
Charlie Josephine Watson with Tupaea Kerr, who admitted killing her but denied it was murder. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you find this, then the worst has happened. And for that, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d read the message. \u201cI hope you recognise the steps I tried to take to make things safer for you. I\u2019m sorry it wasn\u2019t enough to keep me safe too. I really wish I was stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 5pm, six hours before her death, Watson mentioned in a message how Kerr had previously stabbed her with keys, held a knife to her face and suffocated her with a pillow.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou spent f***ing months abusing me,\u201d she wrote at 6.09pm, five hours before her death. <\/p>\n
At 9.41pm, there was a 41-minute video call in which Kerr made Watson walk around her home to prove to him that no other men were there. <\/p>\n
\u2018Zero doubt\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can feel, you can hear, you can see the paranoia,\u201d Paterson said of the video call, which was played for jurors after it was found recorded on Kerr\u2019s phone. \u201cThe irrational anger, the attempts to control come through clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than an hour before Watson\u2019s death, Kerr made it known she was not safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sneaky c***,\u201d he said. \u201cYou not want to play ball. I\u2019ll just show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he did show up a short time later, Watson ran from her house screaming. <\/p>\n
\u201cHelp!\u201d a neighbour\u2019s CCTV recorded her pleading from the pitch-black backyard of a neighbour\u2019s home. \u201cHe\u2019s going to stab me!\u201d<\/p>\n
An autopsy revealed 11 blunt force injuries to her body, as well as a print on her face matching that of Kerr\u2019s shoe. She also had cuts to her hands, which prosecutors described as defensive wounds. <\/p>\n
Police attend the incident on Brandon Rd, Glen Eden, that led to Tupaea Kerr being charged with murder. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n
\u201cMs Watson suffered a sustained and violent assault,\u201d Paterson told jurors, suggesting the shoe print showed that Kerr had stomped her head before inflicting the fatal wound. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe did exactly what he\u2019d previously and explicitly threatened to do. Meanwhile, not even a scratch on Mr Kerr. This was not a two-sided fight in any way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is simply zero doubt that Mr Kerr deliberately slit his partner\u2019s throat. He intended to inflict exactly the wound that he did inflict. It\u2019s just common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Tough upbringing\u2019<\/p>\n
After the verdict, Justice Dani Gardiner ordered Kerr to remain in jail until his sentencing in June, at which point he will most likely face a mandatory life sentence. <\/p>\n
Previous sentencing hearings for Kerr give clues as to what the court will hear this time. <\/p>\n
In May 2024, six months before the murder, he was sentenced out of the High Court at Whang\u0101rei to one year and 10 months\u2019 imprisonment for his low-level \u201cgopher\u201d role in what was described as an $8 million drug empire<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cYou had a tough upbringing,\u201d Justice Christian Whata noted at that sentencing. \u201cYou were exposed to drug abuse as a child and developed a drug habit from the age of 15. You gravitated to gangs from a young age and started prospecting from about 20 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n The judge also noted Kerr had been imprisoned 33 times before that sentencing \u201cfor a wide variety of offences\u201d including violence. <\/p>\n But he had also recently completed an anger management programme and had shown \u201ca strong work ethic and integrity\u201d at the Grace Foundation drug rehab centre, emerging as a leader there, the judge said. <\/p>\n The judge ended his review of Kerr\u2019s background with a reference to Watson. <\/p>\n \u201cFinally, I note a letter provided to me by your partner, and she says that you have taken significant steps, including counselling, to improve yourself and to work towards a better relationship with her, that you are a loving and committed father, and that you genuinely desire to lead a better life,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In 2018, Kerr was sentenced at Tauranga District Court to three years and eight months\u2019 imprisonment after a jury found him guilty of aggravated robbery, unlawfully taking a motor vehicle and assault of a person with a weapon.<\/p>\n He had taken a man\u2019s $25,000 vehicle over a $400 drug debt, then returned to the home after learning days later that the man had contacted police. When he announced his intention to take another man\u2019s vehicle from the address, the second victim tried to plead his case not to do so. As the man was doing so, Kerr picked up a tomahawk and swung it at his head, the sentencing judge outlined. <\/p>\n Like Watson, the victim ran from the home and called out for his neighbours to help. This time Kerr fled, taking the victim\u2019s car and his son\u2019s cremated ashes. <\/p>\n Other media coverage shows Kerr has previously been on the receiving end of a stab wound. In 2011, he was the complainant in a Tauranga District Court trial in which an 18-year-old claimed he lashed out in self-defence with a 20cm hunting knife after Kerr confronted him on a residential driveway.<\/p>\n Kerr, then also 18, suffered a pierced liver and underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder. The wound was centimetres from his heart, which would have resulted in instant death, authorities said at the time. <\/p>\nTupaea Kerr (left) was a patched Black Power member and drug dealer whose past prison sentences include a stint from 2018 to 2021 for swinging a tomahawk at a man\u2019s head. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n