Witnesses at the trial of an airman charged with stealing gun parts from a Blenheim air base claim their superiors were sweeping complaints under the carpet.
Flight Sergeant Murray John Smith has pleaded not guilty to stealing automatic pistol parts worth more than $2000 and unlawfully possessing automatic pistol barrels and slides.
His colleague, armaments technician Oliver Powell, has told the Blenheim District Court at the judge-alone trial that he caught Smith grinding serial numbers off gun components on February 10 last year.
Smith then allegedly placed the items in a plastic bag and took them home from an RNZAF Base in Woodbourne.
The components were restricted items from obsolete weapons that are no longer in use by the Defence Force.
There were around 16 boxes of unaccounted weapon parts and components at the air base's armoury at the time.
Mr Powell says he reported the incident to police rather than his superiors as he had a "lack of faith in the command network" due to the fact that "multiple issues were being swept under the carpet".
"Due to a lack of faith in the command network we decided to take it to the New Zealand police so that it would be dealt with properly", Mr Powell said.
"We had gone to our sergeant with multiple other instances of theft and nothing had been done."
Mr Powell says the barrels, slides and frames were "restricted items" that were hard to obtain by the public, and he was concerned that they may have been illegally sold to others by Smith.
Another colleague Jacob Gorst told the Blenheim District Court he took photographs of Smith grinding serial numbers off restricted gun components after he became concerned he was "up to some dodgy stuff again".
Mr Gorst said that "previous attempts to address matters of a small matter have resulted in negative outcomes."
Senior Army Technician Michael Chambers said he didn't have faith in the military police so he didn't complain to them.
Mr Chambers said that if they reported the problem it "might have been swept under the table", and that Smith held "power and control over them" and would say to them "I control your pay".
Smith was charged in February last year.
The theft charge carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment and the unlawful possession charge carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail, or a fine of $4000.
Newshub.
