Swastika threat juror to flee NZ

A juror in a white supremacist kidnapping trial who received a drawing of a swastika with the words "not guilty" is leaving New Zealand so he can protect his family.

The note was left on the doorstep of his Hutt Valley home on July 13.

Lloyd James Bowling was ordered yesterday to stand trial for being party to an attempt to corruptly influence the juror, but no explanation has been given for how the juror's home address was traced.

The juror, whose name was suppressed, said his first thoughts were for his family then he rang the High Court at Wellington where the trial was being held.

"I left a not very nice message on the answerphone telling them I was not very happy about what has happened," he said from behind a screen while the public was excluded in Lower Hutt District Court yesterday.

The man was discharged from the jury and the trial continued with 11 jurors.

He said he was taking steps to protect his family, "as best I can".

He would not stay in New Zealand.

Police searching the Stokes Valley home where Bowling, 40, was living, found photographs of the kidnapping victim from the trial in which the juror had been sitting.

Nazi propaganda and obscenities had been written over the photos. One of them included: "Lucky you didn't die".

Bowling, unemployed, was remanded in custody to appear in the High Court on October 15, when a trial date may be set.

Bowling's lawyer, Keith Jefferies, had said there was no certainty about who wrote the note and no evidence about who delivered it.

For the police, lawyer Grant Burston said it was alleged Bowling had helped or encouraged the crime.

He was a close associate of the four men - Jaydon Russell Borland, Jason George Gregory, Mark Alexander Gage and Benjamin Peter McPadden - on trial for kidnapping and robbing Canadian tourist Jeremie Kawerninski in April last year.

Gage was discharged, and the other three have been sentenced on various charges.

Police say Bowling's fingerprint was on the note sent to the juror and the paper was ripped from a notebook he had been using.

In a written statement put forward at the hearing, Detective Sergeant Brent Murray said Bowling denied knowing about the note, but then gave a "hypothetical" explanation.

"What if, hypothetically, I wrote the note but didn't know it was being delivered?"

He Bowling said it was written, hung on the wall, then disappeared. He later read about it in the press.

- © Fairfax NZ News