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Joel Maikara Amohanga is on trial in Invercargill High Court, charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, death threat and assault, all for the same incident in the Strathern suburb on November 9, 2019.
One mother says she got in the way of a man who allegedly shot her son to prevent him from firing a second bullet.
Joel Maikara Amohanga is charged with attempting to murder Kane Johnston-Walters at a house on Brown St in the Invercargill suburb of Strathern on November 9, 2019.
In her opening speech in Invercargill Superior Court on Monday, Crown Prosecutor Mary-Jane Thomas said the shooting was due to a love triangle between Amohanga, Johnston-Walters and Candy Svensson.
Svensson had been with both men, Thomas told the jury.
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Amohanga’s defense attorney, Bill Dawkins, did not give a keynote address.
Amohanga pleaded not guilty last year to attempted murder, illegal possession of a shotgun, threatening to kill and assaulting Ann Shirley Johnston, all for the same incident.
Thomas said Johnston, Johnston-Walter’s mother, was the only Crown witness.
She testified Monday, telling the jury she saw Amohanga use a sawed-off pistol to shoot her son in the stomach from about a meter away.
Johnston-Walters had been out of prison for about four to five weeks, and Amohanga had been “harassing” people on the street where she and her son lived, she said.
He spoke to Amohanga a couple of days before the incident and said he was upset and wanted to close his relationship with Svensson.
On the night of the shooting, Johnston said he heard what he thought was a gunshot or firework. She stepped outside and saw Amohanga pointing a sawed-off pistol as he approached her.
She said that he threatened her saying “you want this bullet, b …?”, And then pushed her aside.
Her son was shot in the front door of her home and she closed the door to protect him from being shot again, she said.
During questioning, Dawkins asked Johnston if he had changed his police statement almost a month after the incident to add that he came between Amohanga and his son.
He said he couldn’t remember what was in his opening statement.
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Police examine Brown St in Invercargill after a shooting on November 9, 2019.
Dawkins said Johnston had multiple opportunities to identify Amohanga during a 17-minute 111 call at the time of the shooting, but did not name him even though she had spoken to him in the previous days.
She did not tell the officer who was called that Amohanga was the attacker, but later did so in court, Dawkins said.
“They can’t both be true,” Dawkins said.
Johnston replied, “I could have been in shock.”
Dawkins noted that a police officer who spoke to Johnston immediately after the shooting said he could not give any description of the shooter, other than that he was of medium build and dark skin.
Johnston said his son and Svensson’s relationship had always been on and off, but that it continued while his son was in jail earlier that year.
Johnston-Walters and Svensson would not be called as witnesses in the case, Thomas said.
Judge Cameron Mander is presiding over the trial, which is expected to take more than five days.
