Tim Walker’s Manslaughter II

The killer of Luke Tipene – the young man who was stabbed in the neck and allowed to bleed out on a Grey Lynn street outside a friend’s party – has been convicted.

Ironically neither of the 17-year-old men involved in the above incident had actually been attending the party in question when Vincent Skeen smashed the bottle that he would then use to plunge into Tipene’s neck.

Skeen sat in the dock, appearing nonchalant, unaffected even remorseless, as the charge of manslaughter was passed down…

Honestly, that sickened me – Luke Tipene, a hardworking, dedicated, teetotalling young man who found himself embroiled in a largely unrelated conflict and who ended up dead for trying to sort it out; killed by some idiot he had never met but who saw a fight brewing and thought, ‘I wanna get me a bit of that’, and where, despite it being primarily a fistfight, Vincent Skeen being the brainless personification of pugnacity that he so clearly is, shattered a bottle on the road and thrust it into the nearest body he could find.

…According to the Defence: “There was no murderous intent, therefore a charge of murder cannot be justified”…

Looking into Vincent Skeen’s vapid eyes, perceiving his obtuse manner; witnessing the obnoxious glaze in fact I could see only murderous intent – maybe not so much now but certainly in a few years, I mean once Skeen starts running with gangs, ripping off cars, dealing meth, burglarising, terrorising, womanising and being a general scourge on society, yes, indeed, projected murderous intent was all over the young offender’s face.

…According to one partygoer, the Grey Lynn party ‘got out of hand pretty quick, but it was really nothing but a bit of a harmless scuffle, like, it would have all blown over’, until, presumably, one of the brawlers started bottling people…

I have seen plenty of examples of the aforementioned altercation: silly little boys engaged in pissing contests; silly little boys exerting power, strength, exuding testosterone and such – yet all it takes is for a tumbling head to hit a solid curb and suddenly the ‘harmless scuffle’ becomes manslaughter.

…That fateful night in Grey Lynn it only took one moment, one miscalculation, one error in judgment; one blind act of rage for countless lives to be irreparably damaged.

I have been the one at a party who observes a group’s aggression levels inexplicably rise, I have been the one who looks on as those aggressors begin to cause unrest, I have been the one who tries to sort out those issues, to smooth over disagreements, to ease the tension; I have also been hit in the face, been knocked to the ground for my efforts – oh yes, I am very much familiar with the kinds of idiots who jump into fights purely because a fight is taking place and assuredly, I cannot vouch for their goodness.

In a few months’ time, when Vincent Skeen is sentenced, I sincerely hope he receives the maximum imprisonment a manslaughter charge can bring.

God knows he deserves it.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by A R Soeul

Photography Mehr Dering Swain

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