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David White/Stuff
Desmond Lawrence Bourne was found guilty of murdering Zane Smith.
A man angry about an alleged debt fired five shots into a car, fatally hitting the driver, has been found guilty of murder.
On a spring evening in November 2020, Zane Smith was sitting in a Range Rover on a quiet road just south of Wellsford.
Desmond Lawrence Bourne and Smith had sold drugs to each other in the past, but Bourne thought Smith owed him money, so turned up to a remote road in Wellsford with a gun, the Crown previously said.
On Wednesday, a jury found Bourne guilty of murdering Smith and wounding another man, Scott Fowles.
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* Wellsford homicide: Man shot Zane Smith in his car but says it was self-defence
Smith’s family and friends could be heard crying in the back of the court as the jury foreperson read out the guilty verdicts.
Bourne’s then-girlfriend Serene Tilsely was found not guilty of being an accessory after the fact of the murder.
RYAN ANDERSON/Stuff
Zane Smith was sat in his car when we was shot at.
Justice Timothy Brewer convicted Bourne who will be sentenced in August.
One woman said “love you Des” as Bourne was remanded in custody.
Tilsley was acquitted and free to walk free from the dock.
“Someone who fires five bullets into the driver’s side of a vehicle means to kill a person,” prosecutor Danielle Houghton previously told the jury.
When Fowles gave evidence, he told the court he knew there was “bad blood” between Smith and Bourne over a bad batch of drugs, but thought it had blown over.
But Fowles had been assured by Smith “it was all done and dusted and forgotten about”.
“Des said everything was alright, but I don’t know if I quite believe him on that.”
Fowles drove Bourne’s Range Rover to Wayby Station Rd as Bourne had been drinking that day, but had “sharpened up quite a bit” by that time.
The pair parked up and Smith turned up shortly after. Fowles told Bourne he would jump in the car and do the deal.
“Zane is a good mate of mine.”
David White/Stuff
Serene Tilsley was found not guilty of being an accessory after the fact of murder.
Smith and Fowles chatted for a bit when all of a sudden he heard Bourne loudly yell: “Where’s my f…ing money?” And there was a gun pointing in the window at Smith.
”I tried to reach over and push the barrel away and so did Zane, and the shot was fired.
”I’ve never been in that situation before. I had my hands over my face. The shot went off, and my ears were ringing, and I had blood on my hands, but I knew I wasn’t dead, so my initial thought was to leg it.”
As he was running down Wayby Station Rd towards SH1, he heard three or four other shots ring out.
He managed to flag down some traffic with a woman helping him as he’d been hit by some shrapnel before he was taken to North Shore Hospital.
”They had to extract a fragment of shrapnel out of my face.”
Bourne had pleaded not guilty to the charges he faced.
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