Officer recalls discovery of Liberty's body

BY CLIO FRANCIS IN WHANGAREI

The police officer who discovered the body of teenager Liberty Templeman at first thought he was looking at a floating mannequin, a court was told.

The trial for the boy charged with the slaying of the Kerikeri teen began at the High Court at Whangarei yesterday.

Liberty was just 15 when her body was discovered lying face down in a creek in the small Northland township on November 1, 2008.

The crown alleges she had been beaten into unconsciousness, strangled, indecently assaulted, then left to die in a stream.

Kerikeri police sergeant Ross Laurie told the court he had been driving home from interviewing the accused when he noticed an old orchard on the side of the road.

"I turned around and went back there thinking I don't know if anyone has looked around this area and decided I would do so, there and then."

After walking for some distance he noticed a patch of flattened grass.

"I followed this pathway down toward the stream and when I looked into the water I saw what my first impression was a mannequin lying in the water.

"I looked a bit closer, and I was shocked, I recalled the clothing description I had been given of what Liberty had been wearing and realised it was her body lying face down in the water."

He immediately called police and asked them to turn the radios off at the Kerikeri police station where he knew Liberty's father was waiting.

"I didn't want to alert or alarm him at that stage."

MOTHER CALLED MURDER-ACCUSED

Earlier today the mother of Liberty, Rebecca Templeman, took the stand to speak about her creative daughter who loved drama.

When Liberty failed to reply to texts and phone calls on the night she went missing, Mrs Templeman had immediately become concerned.

"When we hadn't got a response from her...we were really starting to get anxious.

"It was just so unusual for her not to have responded by that point."

After hearing from Liberty's friends that she had last been seen with the 14-year-old accused, Mrs Templeman called him.

"First of all I asked him is this [name suppressed] and he said yes, I then said my name's Rebecca, you won't know me I'm Liberty's mum, sorry for ringing so late I hope I didn't wake you.

"He said no, I said 'I don't know if your aware but Libby has gone missing and I've been talking and receiving text messages and what I've gleaned to date is that you are the last person to be seen with my daughter."

The accused told Mrs Templeman he had last seen Liberty at 7 o'clock that evening. He had left her at the school. She had been happy, the court was told.

Mrs Templeman said she had shared a close bond with her daughter.

"We've always been very close. We've always prided ourselves on having an open household and relationship I would like to think we had a very honest relationship and we were able to talk to each other."

SUPPRESSION FOR ACCUSED

The identity of the accused will remain a secret after Justice Raynor Asher imposed extensive suppression orders prohibiting the publication of his name or image.

The accused denies the charges.

Yesterday in his opening address crown prosecutor Mike Smith said Liberty had arrived in Kerikeri on October 31st planning to spend the weekend with friends.

Her family, originally from England, had recently moved from the town to Auckland and she was excited about catching up with old school friends.

She had spent Saturday at a barbecue before leaving with the accused to visit a friend.

"By Saturday afternoon she would have been beaten till she was unconscious, her body would have been exposed with her clothing pulled away, she has been dragged to a small stream on the outskirts of Kerikeri and left face down to drown", Mr Smith told the court.

"She would remain in that stream for nearly 24 hours until her body was discovered by police."

A post-mortem revealed bruising to her head, eyes and nose, a cut lip and scratches and bruises on her back and buttocks from when she was dragged, half naked, to the creek.

Her cause of death was determined to be drowning.

It is alleged that while Liberty was unconscious the accused ripped off her clothes, breaking her buttons and bra straps, and exposed her breasts and genitals.

The court heard he told police he had done so to make it look like she had been raped and deflect suspicion from himself.

Eventually police executed a search warrant on his family home and found a plastic bag containing a t-shirt with Liberty's blood on it.

On November 7, he admitted to the attack, Mr Smith said.

Yesterday afternoon, one of Liberty's best friends took the stand and recounted his desperate search in the hours after her disappearance.

"She was she was a beautiful, really bubbly person who was always really happy."

Over 50 witnesses are expected to be called over the three week trial.

- © Fairfax NZ News