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'Freaked out' to find body in garage

A New Plymouth man yesterday told of finding the body of Dean Browne in a Drake St garage last year.
Crown witness Joseph Banks was giving evidence in the High Court at New Plymouth.
The Crown alleges that Mikhail Pandey-Johnson, 23, and his patched members of the Killer Clown Fiends, Rhys Fournier, 22, and Karl Nuku 19, murdered Mr Browne at their Oriental Bay, Wellington, flat on January 21 last year. They called themselves the Killer Clown Fiends and wore patches and badges.
Pandey-Johnson and Nuku dumped the body in Ms Davies' Drake St garage the next day, the Crown says.
Last week, defence counsel for Pandey-Johnson, Paul Keegan went on the attack, accusing Claire Davies and her estranged partner at the time, Mr Banks, of knowing and assisting in the plan to get rid of Mr Browne.
Earlier, Mr Banks told the court he had known Pandey-Johnson on and off since he was 14 when they were living in Feilding.
On January 15 last year, Mr Banks said Ms Davies asked her to come to her Drake St house when Pandey-Johnson, who had facial piercings, long coloured dreadlocks and colourful clothing, was visiting her.
"I knew she felt uneasy around him."
Their children were in the house at the time. He was aware that Pandey-Johnson and Nuku had been travelling around the country dealing drugs, "taking care of business".
That night, an angry Pandey-Johnson had told them that if anyone messed with him he would smash them over a head with a claw hammer.
Pandey-Johnson brought out a sawn off shotgun and told them he didn't know if it was loaded or not.
Ms Davies told him she was driving Pandey-Johnson to Bulls to pick up his young brother. Mr Banks told her he did not think she should go.
After her return, on January 22, Ms Davies again borrowed her sister's car, picking him up because Pandey-Johnson had returned to her house.
When they arrived home, he saw a white Toyota backed up the driveway not far from the shed.
Inside the house, Pandey-Johnson asked Nuku if he had sorted out the boot yet. "He said `yeah'."
Before leaving, Pandey-Johnson asked Mr Banks if he knew where to get a chainsaw. Mr Banks said he didn't. Pandey-Johnson left saying he'd be back the next day.
Before Mr Banks left that evening, he went into the garage to get a crescent to fix his son's trainer wheels. It was strange the garage was padlocked, he said.
Inside, he freaked out when he moved a pile of blankets and saw a male's leg and blood on a sheet.
"I freaked out. I was pretty shocked."
He recalled some of the things talked about the week before.

Aware that Pandey-Johnson said he would come back the next day, he feared that Ms Davies and he would end up the same way.
To Mr Keegan, Mr Banks denied he was a drug dealer. He had organised meth for Pandey-Johnson and other drugs for Ms Davies, who was trying to knock her P habit.
"You knew there was a body in the garage. You not only knew but you helped them put it there," Mr Keegan said.
"No, not true," Mr Banks replied.
A Feilding woman friend of Pandey-Johnson, Angela Louise Orr, 25, denied that he and Nuku had taken any drugs, and spoke only of ordinary happenings when they travelled to Ms Davies' New Plymouth home on January 15 last year.
Last week Ms Davies told the court that they drank alcohol, took methamphetamine and marijuana that night and Pandey-Johnson and Nuku wrote a to-do list in order to "take down Fatty" (Mr Browne).
"I didn't see them do anything," Ms Orr said.
On Friday, Ms Davies' younger sister, Katherine Nicole Davies, told of how she knew Pandey-Johnson, a cousin through marriage.When she talked to him in January last year, he told her he was was the leader of the "Killer Clown posse".
He was mentoring people, who he called his "kids", into his group.
He told her he was keen to go to America to join the criminal underworld.
"He seemed different. He was into his gang and was quite strange," Katherine Davies said.
"He said he'd sold enough drugs to buy a couple of houses."
She allowed her sister and Pandey-Johnson to borrow her Mitsubishi car after he told her they wanted to go to his mother's house in Bulls to bring his young brother back. "I thought Claire was going to have him [the boy] for a while."
The Crown told the court last week that the boy, 6, was found in an abandoned white Toyota in New Plymouth on January 25 last year during a city-wide police hunt for the three accused.
Katherine Davies told the court that her sister was "creeped out" by Pandey-Johnson, wanting support from her partner, Mr Banks.
"They were quite scared of him."
Ms Davies told the court that she found three bullets in her car when it was returned to her and after her sister found Mr Browne's body in her garage.
Two women gave evidence yesterday of the comings and goings of the group, one called "the pirates", at their Oriental Bay flat in Wellington in January last year.
- Taranaki Daily News

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