\u201cShannon did it\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Crown allege Brady had murderous intent but the defence claim Baldwin was known for walking in the middle of the road and in front of cars.<\/p>\n
In the last days of the trial, four Waimamaku locals gave evidence of their encounters with Baldwin that morning.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Jasper Rhodes said Brady accepted he hit Baldwin, but it was an accident.<\/p>\n
The defence put forward a case that Baldwin had left his house on foot, looking for Brady and began walking north.<\/p>\n
Kody Williams gave evidence that he came across Baldwin, who lunged at his vehicle.<\/p>\n
Williams said he was \u201cthrowing up gang signs\u201d, and he had to swerve to miss him.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
The rural town of Waimamaku lies south of Omapere. Photo: Denise Piper<\/p>\n
As Baldwin kept walking, a second local, who also gave evidence, saw Baldwin in the middle of the road still throwing up gang signs.<\/p>\n
The local school principal was the third person to come across Baldwin that morning, and she, too, told the trial that Baldwin had lunged at her car.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe got a fright and made a call to police about it,\u201d Rhodes told the jury in closing statements.<\/p>\n
Around 7.45am, Baldwin reached Brady\u2019s driveway and was heard yelling and swearing.<\/p>\n
Another phone call was made to police, this time by Brady\u2019s flatmate, about Baldwin\u2019s concerning behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he wasn\u2019t already angry, he sure was now,\u201d Rhodes said, explaining the demeanour of Baldwin.<\/p>\n
Michelle Dunn was the fourth person to come across Baldwin, who, by this stage, had left Brady\u2019s and was walking back in the other direction.<\/p>\n
Dunn said she saw Baldwin walking along the road, making Mongrel Mob gestures and \u201cscreaming \u2018Tangata whenua\u2019 like he was on something,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sprung out into the road. I had to swerve my vehicle to miss him. Terrible, it was that close. I nearly hit him myself,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n
It was around this time that Baldwin sent a text to an associate of Brady\u2019s to pass on a message: \u201cone ounce a harvest or I call the dogs in\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dunn said when she arrived at her house, contractors laying her new driveway told her they had just helped a man found lying in a ditch after being struck by a vehicle.<\/p>\n
Rhodes told the jury it was Baldwin who was out looking for Brady and, when Brady left his home that morning for a pie, Baldwin \u201cdoes what he always does and takes it a step too far\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rhodes said he saw Brady coming and jumped out in front of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s one road going in and out, the chances of that happening are pretty good,\u201d Rhodes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaldwin had a well-established pattern of behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhodes said the technical evidence submitted by the Crown of the vehicle accelerating within a second and then braking also supported the case that Brady had swerved to miss him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suggest an accidental foot on the accelerator. We\u2019re talking about two seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that he comes to a complete stop makes no sense for someone who\u2019s trying to run someone down. Common sense makes this a much more likely scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhodes said the communications between locals sent in text messages were conversations between friends and asked the jury to put themselves in Brady\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you want 11 jurors poring over your phone data and taking your messages literally and making decisions over their life?\u201d Rhodes asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the phone data does not show, it does not show Mr Brady messaging people that he got him, sorted it out, won\u2019t be bothering us any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t go and delete his phone data. You might think it would be the first thing he does if he\u2019s covering his tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jury retired to deliberate around 10.30am today and returned not guilty verdicts on the murder, and the substitute charge of manslaughter, around 3pm.<\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crown alleged Baldwin, of Waimamaku, wanted a cut of Brady\u2019s alleged cannabis operation and left a message…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[208518,61583,83851,634,5504,42,12517,5158,4275,43,24743,1118,162419,223,40,38,41,39,199385,1869],"class_list":["post-404842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-acquits","tag-baldwin","tag-brady","tag-death","tag-following","tag-headlines","tag-jury","tag-man","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-nicholas","tag-of","tag-shannon","tag-the","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-waimamaku","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404842","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=404842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}