The young woman found guilty of killing Connor Boyd in a “pointless teen drama” is fighting to keep her name secret forever.
Boyd was run over after falling from a moving ute in Auckland’s CBD in the early hours of April 24, 2022 after a night of escalating tensions amongst a group of friends.
The Crown said the young woman grabbed Boyd as she sat in the backseat, while her former boyfriend, who was driving the ute, also held on to Boyd.
On Tuesday, after around 8 hours of deliberations, a jury at the High Court in Auckland rejected the man’s defence of self-defence and his version of what happened that night and found him guilty of manslaughter. The woman was found guilty of manslaughter as a party.
The young man was also found guilty of failing to stop to ascertain injury.
While the woman was found not guilty of stomping and kicking a woman she’d previously admitted attacking.
Abigail Dougherty/Stuff
Julie-Anne Kincade KC said her client had nothing to do with Boyd’s tragic death.
The case was back in court on Friday where the woman’s lawyer, Julie-Anne Kincade KC, argued that naming her client would cause her and her family extreme hardship.
Kincade initially asked for an adjournment while the Supreme Court decides the case of a convicted rapist who carried out his attacks when he was a teenager.
She said, like the present case, the teenage rapist’s case explores issues relating to rehabilitation and youth justice principles.
She said her client had been subjected to a “social media campaign” and had lost her job as a result. There had also been misinformation about the case posted online.
She said that had been curtailed by the suppression order, but others will “jump on the bandwagon” if she is named.
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Justice Ian Gault said Adam Speir was not impaired when he decided to drive.
Justice Ian Gault said he didn’t follow that argument.
“Do you at least accept that submission is not based on evidence?”
Kincade responded: “Your Honour, it’s a submission based on common-sense.”
The woman’s application for permanent name suppression was opposed by the Crown and the media.
Crown prosecutor Jessica Ah Koy said there was no dispute the woman would face some hardship, but that was no different to other young people appearing in court.
She said while there had been threats in the past, there was no evidence that behaviour had continued.
Ah Koy said Boyd’s family strongly opposed the continuation of name suppression.
Kincade said she had instructions to file an appeal if the result did not go in her client’s favour.
Evidence at trial
The final moments of Connor Boyd’s life were captured on CCTV camera and formed the centrepiece of the Crown case against the pair.
Crown, prosecutor Claire Paterson labelled the events leading up to Boyd being run over as a “pointless teen drama”.
In closing the case to the jury, she said there was a ring of truth in the saying “nothing good ever happens in town after midnight”.
The messy backstory to the night included shifting teenage friendships, one-night stands, overlapping friend groups, drunken grandstanding but also plain and simple bullying that got out of control and led to the death of Boyd, Paterson said.
“It is utterly regrettable and so tragic that this is what came from something so silly as a teenage friend group one-night stand, particularly that this all had nothing to do with the defendants or Connor…[but] the choices we make have consequences.”
During the trial, the court heard a friend of one of the defendants, who said Boyd had confronted and threatened him.
The male defendant, who was leaving to head home from the club, saw Boyd and confronted him, telling him to leave his friend alone.
“I thought he’d listen to me…I’d never had drama with Connor before,” the defendant said.
Chris McKeen/Stuff
The High Court in Auckland the trial of two young people, charged with manslaughter, took place.
It is alleged that Boyd said the defendant’s friend was: “Lucky not to have a bullet in his head.”
That is when the defendant punched him.
“I regretted hitting him as soon as I’d done it,” he said.
Boyd was further assaulted when the female defendant pushed, kicked and punched him, an act she admitted to in court.
The group made up and then dispersed. The defendants left in the man’s Toyota Hilux, and it was while they were on Gore St, they both say that Boyd walked over to the ute, and continued making threatening comments.
The female defendant said she pushed Boyd and then slapped him before the male defendant grabbed on to him and started driving. This all happened in the space of seconds.
Paterson told the jury, Boyd had no safe option from the moment he was grabbed, and the car started moving.
“He has not chosen to be in this situation, he’s quite literally being dragged into it…the reason he had no safe option is because the car never stopped.”
The male defendant admitted grabbing on to Boyd with the intention of driving and holding on to him.
But he claimed he was scared for his safety and the safety of his passengers as Boyd punched him through the car window.
In the CCTV footage another arm can be seen out the Hilux window grabbing Boyd, but the female defendant repeatedly denied she was holding on to him.
Boyd can be seen running alongside the vehicle and hanging on to the runner board, before he appears to fall and is run over.
“The dangerousness of the driving is shocking. It is so utterly unnecessary.”
After Boyd fell and his head was run over, the defendant made no attempt to stop, saying he was panicked and shocked.
“I thought it had gone over his leg at most. I didn’t think it was as serious.
He admitted, in hindsight, he should have stopped.
The female defendant called 111 seven minutes after the incident, saying “some dude tried to f… up my boyfriend, he was trying to punch my boyfriend”.
Paterson suggested this was because she was trying to make it look like it was not her or her boyfriend’s fault.
She disagreed and said it was because she was freaking out and just wanted to get help for Boyd.
Paterson told the jury the defendants weren’t acting out of fear that night.
“Any fear that night was fantasy. They were angry. As they grabbed him they wanted to teach him a lesson and give him a fright,” she said.
She said irrespective of what may or may not have come out of Boyd’s mouth that night, his behaviour is not aggressive, and he posed no threat to anyone.
The pair have been remanded on bail to appear for sentencing on February 16.
