01/08/09, 12:53:53 UTC

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Tourist accused of inventing attack

stuff.co.nz

A Canadian tourist was yesterday of accused of inventing a story about being kidnapped, beaten up and robbed by four men on his first day in Wellington.

Jaydon Russell Borland, 31, Jason George Gregory, 20, Mark Alexander Gage, 31, and Benjamin Peter McPadden, 19, have pleaded not guilty in the High Court in Wellington to detaining Jeremie Kawerninski, 26, without his consent, causing him grievous bodily harm and robbing him of his wallet, clothing, watch and rings.

Mr Kawerninski, 26, spent eight days in Lower Hutt Hospital with a fractured rib, collapsed lung and serious bruising after his ordeal.

Gage's lawyer Greg King put it to Mr Kawerninski yesterday he had "totally exaggerated" what happened to him.

"You have conned the New Zealand police."

Mr King asked: "Is the truth, Mr Kawerninski, that you did not want your parents to hear what you had been doing in New Zealand?

"Did they know that you were going about telling people you were a professional cage fighter?."

Mr King suggested to Mr Kawerninski that he had not been kidnapped and robbed.

"It was just an easy lie for you to make, for you to be looked after in hospital."

Mr Kawerninski replied he had told police the truth. While he had done some cage fighting as a college student, he had never been one professionally.

Crown prosecutor Mark Anderson told the court yesterday Mr Kawerninski met Gage, Gregory and Borland in Courtenay Place, in his first day in the capital on April 18, last year.

He bought them drinks, and the group went to McPadden's house in Naenae, Lower Hutt, to drink the bourbon they had bought en route.

After drinking too much, Mr Kawerninski fell asleep in a bedroom.

The four accused then entered the room, kicked, punched and robbed Mr Kawerninski before putting a pillowcase over his head and binding his hands and feet.

Mr Kawerninski was then bundled into a car driven to a secluded cul-de-sac and dumped him, Mr Anderson said.

Though the complainant's mother and father had been flown over to support their son, they were not in the courtroom.

Borland's lawyer Steve Gill yesterday asked Mr Kawerninski why, of all the people on Courtenay Place that day, he approached the man with tattoos on his head and jeans tucked into high boots.

"You knew, as soon as you saw him, he was a skinhead," Mr Gill said.

"No, I don't discriminate by looks," the witness said.

"He has 'Nazi' tattooed on his eyelid," the lawyer countered.

The trial continues today.

 Printable Version  | published Jul 05, 2007