NZPA

Park death jury retires for second night

NZPA November 4, 2009, 6:01 pm

The jury in the Auburn Reserve manslaughter trial deliberated all day without reaching a verdict and will continue its task from 10am tomorrow.

Thomas Tihema Christie, 26, and Sonny Avon Rehu, 32, both unemployed are charged with the manslaughter and indecent assault of a 16-year-old Dunedin youth.

They deny doing anything that caused the death of Shaun Finnerty-Gallagher who was found dead at the Auburn Reserve in Upper Riccarton last February.

The Crown says he had been bashed, and was left lying intoxicated and virtually naked in the park, where he died from "positional asphyxiation" during the night.

Trial judge Justice Graham Panckhurst spoke to the jury at 4.30pm before they retired for a second night, after they had spent a full day in the jury room in the High Court at Christchurch.

They began their deliberations at 3.20pm yesterday, when the judge finished his summing up in the four-week trial.

They have not returned to court for any questions since their retirement.

The trial began with two men facing murder charges, but they were downgraded to manslaughter charges on Monday after a ruling by Justice Panckhurst.

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