Judge drops murder charges related to Karori death after deemed unsafe for jury

The women has permanent name suppression. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

Charges have been dropped in a trial at the High Court in Wellington after the judge ruled on the basis of the Crown's evidence it was not safe for a jury to convict.

A woman, who has been granted permanent name suppression, had been on trial since early May.

She faced a charge of being party to murder for the death of Rau Tongia, who was shot in his Karori home in 2020.

She had previously pled not guilty to the charge.

Two women were convicted of his murder in a trial last year and a total of seven people have faced charges in relation to his death. Of these five have been convicted.

A central part of the Crown's case during this trial was Facebook messages it said the woman had sent to Shayde Weston, one of the two women convicted of Tongia's murder.

The Crown argued that just minutes after the woman, who was also at the Karori home, sent messages saying "kill him" and "this n***** needs to go permanently", Weston was on her way with a gun.

The woman's defence lawyer Elizabeth Hall had previously argued that her client did not remember sending the messages, nor did she believe they would have changed the events.

Following the conclusion of the Crown's case, Hall made an application to dismiss the charges, which was granted.

Justice Paul Radich told the jury this morning he had to consider as a matter of law whether a jury could safely make a conviction on the available evidence.

He said that there was no evidence the Facebook messages had been received or read by Weston, and in the absence of that evidence it left the jury to draw inferences about the message and the events that subsequently occurred.

Justice Radich said it was one of the rare cases where a charge should be dismissed.

Following the charge being dropped, the woman was visibly relieved.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.