In the News: Trial for Brown killing starts tomorrow

NZ: Trial for Brown killing starts tomorrow
21st June 2009

Hungarian tourist Fernando Ambach will appear before the Auckland high court tomorrow on the first day of his trial for the alleged murder of elderly gay Onehunga man Ronald Brown (Picture insert).

Brown was found by police badly injured and barely clinging to life after his neighbours reported a disturbance in the early hours of Saturday 8 December 2007 which included screaming and the sounds of glass breaking and other destruction. Ambach was upstairs in an agitated state, throwing furniture out of windows and required four police officers to subdue him. Whilst in police holding cells that night Ambach is alleged to have smeared a heart and the word 'girlfriend' in his own blood on the cell wall.Brown's life support was turned off two days later.Ambach subsequently pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, assault and intentional damage, but defense and prosecution lawyers agreed in a hearing on 11 July last year that there was a prima facie case to answer.

The trial, which is set down for three weeks with 75 witnesses expected to be called, is likely to progress slowly as the proceedings will have to be translated into and from Hungarian for the defendant.GayNZ.com Daily News will have reporters and observers in the court for the duration of the trial.

Story lead up:

Fernand Ambach, the Hungarian tourist charged with murdering elderly gay Aucklander Ron Brown, has just pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, assault and intentional damage.

Ronald BrownHowever, lawyers for the prosecution and defense have both agreed that there is a prima facie case to answer and the case will therefore go to trial.In a practically empty courtroom, two JPs this morning oversaw the process of translation of final witness statements for Ambach. Asked how he wished to plead to the three charges, Ambach answered clearly in english, "Not guilty." Family and friends of Brown, who had packed the small courtroom for the start of the depositions hearing on Wednesday, were not present today to hear the plea.Police, alerted by neighbours who heard screaming and shattering glass, found Ambach upstairs in an agitated state in Brown's Onehunga home in the early hours of Saturday December 8.
Brown was slumped unconscious and badly injured downstairs, his home had been trashed and household effects including a bed had been thrown through upstairs windows.Ambach claims he was affected by alcohol, that Brown made a pass at him and that he has only a vague recollection of events following that.Brown, who had met Ambach in a neighbourhood bar earlier in the evening, died in hospital the following Monday evening when his life support was turned off.Ambach was remanded in custody, to reappear in court on August 13th.
He thanked his interpreter and was led out of court by a police officer.

Distressed police describe attack scene
9th July 2008

The two police officers first to arrive at Ron Brown's home have described the bloody scene of the attack, their distress at being unable to assist the badly beaten elderly gay man, and the extremely agitated behaviour of the man subsequently accused of his murder.

Ronald BrownThe officers were this afternoon presenting evidence at the depositions hearing into the circumstances of Brown's death in early December last year. Fernand Ambach, a tourist whom Brown had met at a nearby Onehunga, Auckland, bar earlier in the evening, is charged with murder, assault and intentional damage.
The two police officers, responding to a 111 call from neighbours, failed to see any problems on their first arrival at the scene half an hour after midnight. They left, but returned to Mariere Road around 1am to find neighbours pointing down a driveway at Brown's house. As they neared the building, the officers say, they heard a male voice yelling and glass shattering. They then observed broken windows and a man pacing back and forth upstairs. They say the man was throwing clothing down into the backyard and that he also threw a mattress through a broken window into the front yard. They say he was shouting in a foreign language and was very agitated.While the officers called for backup and a dog handler, they told this afternoon's hearing, they observed the man throwing a torch, wood, a cushion and other items from the upstairs window.As they entered Brown's home they saw a broken glass door, water dripping down from the floor above and Ron Brown propped against a wall at the bottom of the stairs.
He appeared unconscious, with a piece of what they took to be part of a broken banjo neck in his mouth. "It seemed deliberately placed," the officers said in their evidence. Blood was splattered on the walls around Brown. He had deep lacerations on his forehead, what appeared to be a broken cheekbone, and bruised eyes and lips. They say Brown was still breathing, but in "short, difficult" breaths. They could smell alcohol. The stairs appeared "barricaded" with household items including a computer monitor. Using a curtain which had been torn from its track, the male and female officers improvised a stretcher and removed Brown from the house. Fearing they would be attacked by the agitated man, the officers say they tried to squirt pepper spray upstairs, to no avail.

Eventually the man calmed down a little, they told the hearing, and police officers were able to coax him downstairs. However, once outside the house the man became more upset and eventually required "five or six" officers to subdue and handcuff him. Meanwhile, Brown was losing "a substantial amount of blood" and the officers this afternoon described their distress at being unable to stop the bleeding until medical help arrived. Throughout the hearing a translator has been providing simultaneous translation of the proceedings to Ambach, who has remained generally calm, though he occasionally appeared impatient. The translator is currently translating the large amount of written evidence presented to the two JPs hearing the depositions. Although set down for three days, it now appears possible the hearing could wind up tomorrow afternoon after more witnesses have given their evidence in person.


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