A prosecutor has suggested a teenage murder-accused chased his victim 12m across a busy Dunedin street doing “his best” to stab him.
The 14-year-old defendant, whose name is suppressed, repeatedly told the High Court at Dunedin that he never intended to hurt 16-year-old Enere Taana-McLaren, only to “drive him off”.
The pair, who had never previously met, crossed paths when the defendant got off a bus at the bus hub on the afternoon of May 23.
The younger boy initially walked past the Trinity College student before returning, sparking a confrontation on the footpath.
CCTV footage of the seconds leading up to the stabbing was played repeatedly as the defendant was cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Robin Bates.
“He backed away from you the moment the knife came out?" Mr Bates suggested.
“You could’ve stopped chasing him a couple of metres along the footpath.”
He estimated the distance from where the knife was produced to where Enere was stabbed was 12m.
“I wasn’t following him, I was trying to chase him away,” the defendant said.
“He was already running away,” Mr Bates replied.
The jury viewed footage of Enere kick the teenager, then the boy swing “wildly” with the knife.
“You're doing you best to stab him with the knife," Mr Bates suggested.
“You miss once, you succeed a second time.”
The defendant denied he meant to cause any harm.
“I didn’t intend to stab him,” he said.
The teenager told the court he understood, at the time, a knife could cause serious harm but said he was ignorant to the fact a stabbing could be fatal.
“I suggest the reason you walked towards him was because he’d called you names and you wanted to deal to him?”
But the teen repeatedly rejected that assertion.
“No, I didn’t want to deal to him. I walked back to ask: ‘what’s your problem with me’,” he said.
The boy told the court this morning, Enere had initially called him “b.... boy” and told him to pull down his socks as he walked by, before calling him a “sackless c...”.
Mr Bates asked the boy why he closed the distance – a possible 10m - with the Trinity College student, who was at a bus stop.
“I didn’t want to be sackless. I didn’t want to be the boy that can be bullied. I walked back to let him know I’m not scared of him,” the defendant said.
He could have kept walking north towards his waiting bus, Mr Bates said.
“But I didn’t want to be a sackless c...,” the teen said.
When he gave evidence this morning, he described his mindset when he discovered the victim had died.
“I broke down. I felt like I never felt before. It was the most unexpected thing. I couldn’t believe that I’m the one that took his life,” he said.
“I consistently have nightmares about Enere’s death and it keeps rewinding in my mind.”
Cross-examination will continue tomorrow.
