Two former skinhead mates linked to a secretive neo-Nazi gang are beginning life sentences for the murder of a homeless gay man in Westport.
A High Court jury in Greymouth took just four hours yesterday to find Leighton Brian Wilding, 38, of Nelson, and Hayden Brent McKenzie, 28, of Westport, guilty of murder.
The pair strangled and drowned James Bamborough – a 54-year-old eccentric who lived in his car with his two dogs and preferred to be called Janis – after a party in Westport on October 12, 1999.
Former friends Wilding and McKenzie were linked to a white power gang, the Fourth Reich, but turned on each other at the three-week trial, accusing each other of the killing.