David Benbow at his retrial at the Christchurch High Court on 21 August, 2023. Photo: Stuff / Pool / Iain McGregor
The judge overseeing the murder trial of a man accused of murdering his childhood friend says the fate of a missing firearm was a key strand in the Crown case.
The jury in the High Court trial on David Benbow, who is accused of murdering his friend Michael McGrath in May 2017, has now retired after seven weeks of evidence.
McGrath has not been seen since May 2017.
This is the second trial for David Benbow, with the jury in the earlier trial this year unable to reach a verdict.
On Monday Justice Jonathon Eaton summed up the evidence presented in the trial for the jury.
Justice Eaton told the jury the Crown case was that Benbow killed McGrath because he was angry and jealous over a new relationship between his ex-partner and McGrath.
However, he said the defence case was that Benbow did not know what happened to McGrath, and police made insufficient effort to look into alternative explanations.
Justice Eaton said the fate of Benbow's missing firearm was an important strand in the Crown's case.
He said the Crown asked "could it be just a most unfortunate coincidence that a man being investigated as a suspect in the disappearance of a friend, who is now in a relationship with his ex-partner, can't explain where his 22 firearm and ammunition are. And the Crown say the only plausible explanation is that Mr Benbow had deliberately disposed of these items because they would have incriminated him in the murder of Mr McGrath".
However Justice Eaton said the defence view was that that makes no sense.
"That if the Crown are right and Mr Benbow had carefully planned this murder that he had used his own firearm but had no sensible explanation for being unable to account for it."
Justice Eaton said the jury had to consider the various loyalties, to Benbow, to McGrath, and to Benbow's ex-partner Joanne Green.
Justice Eaton said the Crown questioned why Benbow made the dump trip when he only disposed of a few items, and had not told the police about it proactively.
However, he said the defence questioned why Benbow would take items to the dump if he had successfully disposed of a body.
Justice Eaton said the defence's view was that it was "just somebody getting rid of old clothes and rubbish collected. It was innocuous and its no coincidence, the defence say, that not withstanding all those hours of searching at Kate Valley landfill nothing was found, because there was nothing to be found, because they were targeting the wrong person".
Justice Eaton said the defence pointed out that police had searched the dump for 8000 hours.