Please note this story contains details that may upset some readers.
A teenager was lured to an abandoned state house where she was beaten, tortured and hanged, a court has heard.
A 21-year-old woman, who has interim name suppression, has denied charges of kidnapping and murdering 17-year-old Dimetrius Pairama and has gone on trial at the High Court in Auckland.
In her opening address to the jury on Monday, Crown prosecutor Claire Robertson said Pairama was murdered by the defendant and two others, Ashley Toko Winter and Kerry Te Amo.
Winter and Te Amo have both been convicted for their roles.
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“They carried out a senseless and unimaginable attack on a young vulnerable teenager, and they took away her will to live, presenting her with an impossible choice.”
Robertson said Pairama, known as Demie and Precious, had lived with her grandparents up north.
David White/Stuff
Kerry Te Amo and Toko (Ashley) Shane Winter at their trial at the High Court in Auckland for the murder of Dimetrius Pairama (composite image).
When her grandfather died she moved back in with her mother in Auckland, but Robertson said Pairama would frequently spend time on the streets.
At one point she was in the custody of Oranga Tamariki but would run away.
She was enrolled in a skills course and was described by those that loved her as “bubbly, pretty and friendly,” Robertson said.
“She was the sort of young person who would hug everyone when she got to class.”
Her life goal was to get a qualification and save enough money to buy a house so she and her grandmother could live together.
On the night of Friday, July 6, 2018, Pairama was at Burger King in town when she bumped into Winter and two teenagers, one of whom is on trial.
Later that night the group met up with Te Amo and early the next day they boarded a south-bound train, getting off at Middlemore.
Robertson said the group planned to crash at the abandoned Māngere state house and arrived there at about 9am.
“Sometime after that Ashley Winter, Kerry Te Amo and [the accused] turned on Dimtrius Pairama. The likeable teenager became the undeserving victim of an attack.”
She said the Crown would be calling a witness who was in the house at the time and had been granted immunity from prosecution by the Solicitor General.
Robertson said the teenager saw Winter stomping and kicking Pairama in the stomach before the accused punched and kicked Pairama.
Then there was a knock at the front door.
By chance, three police officers were on the doorstep looking for someone who used to live at the house.
Robertson said the officers thought Pairama had been crying and invited her to get in a police car but Pairama told the officers not to worry.
Robertson said when the police left, the attack on Pairama stepped up a gear.
She said Pairama was ordered to remove her clothing, she was gagged and tied to a chair with ripped sheets.
Robertson said the immunity witness will say it was at this point Winter and the accused began cutting Pairama’s hair. The accused is also alleged to have used an aerosol can and a cigarette lighter as a makeshift blow-torch to burn Pairama’s chest and genitals.
She said Te Amo then assaulted Pairama with blows powerful enough to break bones.
Robertson said Pairama was crying, complaining of a pain in her ribs and that she needed to go to hospital.
But instead of getting help, the witness will say Winter asked Pairama if she would like to be stabbed to death or hanged.
Robertson said the witness will say while Te Amo and the accused ripped sheets to use as a makeshift rope, the witness offered Pairama her clothes, so she could escape. Pairama said she was too scared and would rather die.
Robertson said the witness was sent to the living room as a look-out and fell asleep. She will tell the court that when she woke, Pairama was hanging in the hallway.
Robertson said Pairama’s body was cut down, wrapped in sheets and rubbish bags and left in a steel drum in the backyard.
“[The accused] was very much apart of it, from start to finish.”
Sometime later the witness asked why Pairama had been killed. Winter said she herself had been assaulted and Pairama played a role. The accused said Pairama had posted something on Facebook about her which led to her being threatened.
“The Crown says it is unfathomable how either reason could ever be elevated to a position where they would want to torture and kill her in the way she was.”
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
The accused’s lawyer David Niven (file pic)
The accused’s lawyer, David Niven, told jurors they would need to focus on his clients’ knowledge and intentions at the time. He said while she took part in the assaults, she did not want Pairama dead.
“[The accused] made it clear she did not want to be a part of that.”
He said his client did not take part in the hanging and actively discouraged the killing.
“She did not want her friend to die.”
He said Winter took a “dominant role” and never intended to join in the killing.
Niven said another issue at play in the trial will be disability.
He said his client was being helped in the dock by a nurse and a communications assistant.
Niven told the jurors they would need to take his client’s impairment into account when considering what his client did during the attack and afterwards.
The trial, before Justice Kiri Tahana and a jury, is due to hear from 25 witnesses over four weeks.
