{"id":644645,"date":"2026-10-29T08:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T08:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644645\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T08:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T08:10:11","slug":"man-charged-with-manslaughter-of-braydon-hepworth-appears-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644645\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with manslaughter of Braydon Hepworth appears in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Christchurch man charged with the manslaughter of Braydon Hepworth<\/a> has appeared in court.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old father’s body was found buried in a shed<\/a> in Linwood on October 8 after he had gone missing early September.<\/a><\/p>\n

A 60-year-old man, earlier charged with concealing Hepworth’s body<\/a> and making a false statement, now faces a manslaughter charge.<\/p>\n

The accused has been granted interim name suppression.<\/p>\n

He appeared via audio-visual link in the Christchurch District Court on Thursday and did not enter a plea.<\/p>\n

The matter has been moved to the High Court following the new manslaughter charge.<\/p>\n

The man was remanded in custody until his next court date in November.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old father’s body was found buried in a shed in Linwood on October 8. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Last week<\/a>, police charged a 34-year-old Christchurch man in relation to the concealment of Hepworth’s body.<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector Scott Anderson said the investigation into Hepworth’s disappearance remained ongoing.<\/p>\n

“However, as the matter is now before the courts, police are unable to comment further at this time,” he said.<\/p>\n

An independent review will be carried out<\/a> into the care Hepworth received at the Christchurch City Mission after he was told to leave its Whakaora K\u0101inga transitional housing complex less than two months before he disappeared.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the mission board confirmed the review would be led by Wellington barrister Andrew Scott-Howman, who is an experienced employment lawyer and workplace investigator.<\/p>\n

The review would look at the mission’s responsibilities in relation to Hepworth with Scott-Howman due to report back with a summary of findings at the end of November, the board said.<\/p>\n

A former staff member told RNZ Hepworth’s death was the catalyst for her resignation as she had serious concerns about the mission’s direction.<\/p>\n

Alex \u2014 who did not want her surname to be used \u2014 said Hepworth was given 15 minutes to pack up his belongings and leave.<\/p>\n

“A year of familiarity, relationships and a place to turn when life became overwhelming, reduced to 15 minutes to gather his possessions and walk away,” she said in her resignation letter.<\/p>\n

“I find it difficult to comprehend how this could be considered an appropriate way to exit someone whose circumstances called for compassion, careful consideration and trauma-informed practice.<\/p>\n

“Braydon deserved better. His daughter deserved better. And every person who comes to Whakaora K\u0101inga seeking safety, stability, and support deserves better.”<\/p>\n

rnz.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Christchurch man charged with the manslaughter of Braydon Hepworth has appeared in court. The 21-year-old father’s body…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[158,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-644645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644645","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=644645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}