Man acquitted of being lookout during Dannevirke huia heist | Stuff.co.nz
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Man acquitted of being lookout during Dannevirke huia heist
DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
The male of a pair of huia at the Dannevirke Gallery of History. The female was stolen in July 2020.
A man who says he had no idea an associate was going to steal a stuffed huia when they visited a small rural museum has been found not guilty of being an accomplice.
Judge Stephanie Edwards found a charge of theft laid against Jayden Lucas Matthew Paewai, 26, was not proven after a judge-alone trial in the Dannevirke District Court on Tuesday.
Dannevirke’s Gallery of History used to be home to a pair of huia shot in the Pohangina valley, north of Palmerston North, in 1889.
Male and female pairs are often displayed together due to the females having much longer beaks.
But staff noticed in July 2020 the female of the pair had gone missing.
The bird was worth $15,000, although the judge said the historical value was much higher.
The missing bird has not been recovered.
Paewai went to the museum with Dean Bradley Mudgway on July 14, 2020.
Mudgway did not go to trial, instead being sentenced to 19 months’ jail for a range of offences, including the theft, after pleading guilty.
Paewai, who gave evidence at his judge-alone trial in the Dannevirke District Court yon Tuesday, did not deny going there with Mudgway.
Mudgway called him that morning asking if he wanted to “go for a ride”, with the duo going to the gallery.
Paewai had not been there before and was curious about the exhibits.
“It was quite interesting to see Dannevirke’s history,” he said.
CCTV footage showed him going around the small gallery multiple times, spending time loitering in the hallway and near the toilet at the back.
He said he kept doing circles because Mudgway was taking a long time to finish up, which gave him time to talk to a volunteer about some displays.
He denied having anything to do with a robbery, saying he did not know about the theft until Mudgway pulled the huia out from somewhere while driving away from the museum.
The most significant evidence was footage from two CCTV cameras, which recorded the main corridor and the room the huia was in.
But the camera in the huia room did not capture the main doorway or the cabinet the huia was in.
The footage showed Mudgway filling out the visitor book – he put in false names, but an address Paewai stayed at – before the pair went around the museum.
When giving her decision, the judge said the case against Paewai was mainly circumstantial.
Paewai constantly walked around the museum and regularly stood between the doorway to the huia room and the staff office, as well as regularly looking at the camera in the main corridor.
He also followed Mudgway quickly out of the museum, which police said supported the lookout theory.
But the judge said other inferences were available, such as that Paewai was genuinely bored waiting for Mudgway to finish up.
Evidence from Mudgway may have cleared things up, but without it there was no way to be sure of Paewai’s guilt, the judge said.
Paewai plead guilty before the trial to various unrelated charges and is on bail until sentencing for those offences in November.