Supreme Court MAN ACQUITTED OF THREAT TO KILL

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 7

Supreme Court MAN ACQUITTED OF THREAT TO KILL

The defence of Ronald Nicholas Tiki, aged 30, a meal polisher, who stood trial in the Supreme Court yesterday on a charge of threatening to kill a former flatmate, Victor Hughes, was that Hughes and a third man concocted the complaint to get him out of the way and steal has possessions, in lieu of wages owed to them. A jury found Tiki not guilty on this charge, but guilty on a second charge of assaulting Hughes. Mr Justice Macarthur remanded Tiki in custody for sentence tomorrow.

Tiki (Mr K. M. Hampton) pleaded not guilty to both counts.

The Crown Prosecutor (Mr C. M. Roper) said that Tiki, Hughes, and Garry Kevin James Rupe were last November living ita a flat in Kilmarnock street, Riccarton, Where they did metal polishing. Tiki could be considered in charge of the enterprise. On the morning of November 11, after an argument with Tiki during which Hughes was thrown to the floor, Hughes decided to leave the flat. Tiki came up behind him, grabbed him by the throat, and held a knife point to his throat, threatento kill him. Hughes, aged 19, and now a soldier, described the alleged assault and threat. Cross-examined, he agreed that after Tiki was arrested he and Rupe stole Tiki’s most valuable possessions, and had been charged with the theft. He also agreed that the complaint of the alleged threat to kill was not made until the evening of November 11, but denied that it was a plan concocted by himself and Rupe to get Tiki out of the way. If Tiki' had paid them their wages, he said, they would never have touched Tiki’s possessions. Rupe, in evidence, said that

he overheard Tiki threaten to kill Hughes, but Tiki so often uttered suck threats that he took little notice at it.