Witnesses change evidence at trial of gang member who fired shotgun at 21st birthday party, causing wounding

Witnesses who identified a gang “superstar” as the man who fired a gun at a 21st birthday party – which left the victim with a gaping 18cm wound to his leg – later tried to
retract their evidence at the trial.

The U-turn from partygoers who had picked out George McDonald as the shooter from a photo montage was either because they had been pressured by associates of the patched Comanchero, or simply feared his notorious gang connections, the trial judge said.

Despite a number of witnesses now claiming to be too drunk to remember and casting doubt on their positive earlier identification, as well as someone else confessing to the crime, McDonald was convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

At the sentencing hearing for the previously unreported case, the judge described the 32-year-old as “fortunate”.

This was because the conviction was McDonald’s third offence under the so-called “Three Strikes” law, which meant the judge would likely have had to impose the maximum sentence of 14 years without parole.

However, the hardline policy was repealed by the Labour Government just days before McDonald was due to be sentenced last year.

Court documents obtained by the Herald on Sunday show McDonald took a gun to a fist fight in the Auckland suburb of Ōtara on November 10, 2019.

The shooting occurred at a surprise 21st birthday party thrown for a young Tongan man at the home of McDonald’s brother in Cobham Cres.

The guests were nearly all family and the vibe at the party was jovial until the mood soured sometime after midnight.

An argument started between some of the young women present, which escalated into a physical altercation.

A melee broke out on the street in front of the house and spilled into Otamariki Park on the other side of the road.

McDonald and some friends were drinking in a ute parked on a nearby street until 2.39am, when his brother called his phone.

Within minutes, McDonald arrived at Cobham Cres. He got out of the ute with a sawn-off shotgun in his hands and confronted a group of drunk young men, who challenged and mocked him, before they retreatedinto the park.

The gun-toting McDonald followed them.

He fired a warning shot into the ground which hit no one. He fired a second shot which hit the victim in the leg.

The blast left a wound – with muscles exposed to the bone – about 15cm wide and 18cm long.

The victim was in hospital for two weeks, and it was six months before he could use his leg again. He was unable to work for an entire year, and still struggles to lift heavy objects or walk long distances.

After the shooting, the victim said he felt “stressed out” because he feared McDonald’s fellow Comancheros would do something to him or his family.

“The victim says he has nothing to say directly to you about what you did,” Justice Gerard van Bohemen said at the High Court sentencing in October.

“He says, however, that what was supposed to be a good night turned out to be a horrible year or so.”

The Herald on Sunday can also reveal the incident was the second time McDonald has shot someone in the leg at a 21st party.

A fight broke out at a birthday celebration in October 2015 and he retrieved a shotgun from his car.

In remarkably similar circumstances to the second shooting, McDonald fired a warning shot in the air, then a second blast in the direction of the rival group.

The victim was struck in the lower right leg and suffered significant injuries. McDonald pleaded guilty to wounding with reckless disregard and in September 2016 was sentenced to two years and four months in prison. It was his second “strike” so he served the full sentence without parole.

It was during this time in prison that McDonald graduated from a low-level street gang into a feared international motorcycle club, according to a cultural report written after he was convicted of the second shooting in 2019.

He was born in Auckland as the youngest of seven children to Tongan parents who separated when he was about 6.

His mother was a devout member of the Mormon church and worked several jobs to support her family, which meant McDonald was often left in the care of his older siblings.

When he was about 12, he was sent to Australia to live with an older brother, where he first showed signs of rebellion; going to parties, drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis.

He returned a year later to attend St Paul’s College but joined the JDK (Junior Don Kings) as well as the CCB (or Crown Cres Boys), a gang formed of youths who lived in the same Otara neighbourhood. Many of the CCB were McDonald’s family on his father’s side.

That’s when the trouble started. In December 2009, McDonald was sentenced to two months in prison on a variety of offences, including assaulting a female, threatening behaviour, drink driving and resisting police.

It would be the first of 16 prison sentences.

“For me, it was pretty cool at that age,” McDonald told the cultural report writer. “I thought that was part of building my name … doing a little jail time makes you a superstar when you get back to the hood. So you go harder and faster in the lifestyle.”

He was back in jail within six months.

What followed was a nine-year period in which McDonald spent more than half the time behind bars, including for the first birthday party shooting in 2015.

This was when he met “501” deportees from Australia and joined the Comancheros.

“I think it’s just what pretty much sealed the deal for me was the brotherhood. I think that’s what I was looking for in my street gang. When I was evolving, they weren’t evolving with me … I kept growing and my boys in the hood didn’t want to grow,” McDonald told the cultural report writer.

“Then these boys come along and they’re Tongan boys as well. I got along so well with them. It just felt right, so I just went with the flow.”

The Comancheros are an Australian motorcycle club that established a chapter in Auckland five years ago, after more than a dozen members were deported as “501s” by Australian authorities.

Law enforcement agencies were concerned about the gang’s connections to international organised crime groups, as well as their more brazen attitude to violence, and the Comancheros soon stamped their mark on the local underworld.

It was the gang’s reputation which caused the police witnesses at McDonald’s shooting trial to change their story, Justice van Bohemen said.

“Whether they were just fearful of you because of your association with the Comancheros or had been leaned on, I can’t say.

“What is evident, however, is that there were efforts to assist you in evading responsibility for your actions and you have continued to deny responsibility.”

The judge sentenced McDonald to six years and three months in prison, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal in a recently released ruling.

Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland.