ACCUSED CLAIMS HE WAS A SOLDIER IN WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Murder accused "Jack" Frost claims he was on a one-man anti-P crusade
when he killed Angela Deane in New Plymouth.

Two video interviews with the accused were played to the High Court at
New Plymouth yesterday.

Duncan Conrad Murray Frost ,49, better known as Jack, is on trial for
murdering Ms Deane, 55, at her Westown address on February 1 last
year. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear and she had a gaping
stab wound in her back.

While he admits he killed her, his defence counsel is arguing it was
manslaughter.

In the video interviews, conducted just hours after Frost had been
arrested in an armed offenders squad raid, the accused told detectives
he killed Ms Deane because he did not like P drug dealers. He said she
also had told him that she was going to set him up.

Frost claimed he had had sex with Ms Deane before killing her, saying
he had cut her throat first and then stabbed her as she lay on the
floor.

Asked what Ms Deane was doing just before she was killed, Frost said
she "was about to throw a hot pan at me" after they had started arguing.

He did not really have "any feelings about it", he thought he "just
lost the plot" after going to her place to tell her to stop messing
with pure methamphetamine. "With Ange, I was trying to get to the source."

Frost claimed in the interview that he knew she was involved with the
drug because he had seen her "weighing" it up.

"It wasn't as if I had anything against her," he said. "I just didn't
like what she was doing."

His crusade against P was not going to stop after Ms Deane was killed
because he said a soldier did not stop because he killed someone.

Yesterday's screening was the first time members of Ms Deane's family,
including her father and daughter, had seen the police interview.

Her daughter became visibly upset as Frost laughed and joked during
the interview.

The second video covered historical incidents between Frost and a
number of his former partners and associates, who he described as
burnt out P addicts.

He admitted to using P a long time ago and that was how he knew it was
rubbish and scary.

The last witness to give evidence in the Crown's case, Detective Susan
Ashton, told the court that Frost had been trespassed from Ms Deane's
property in July, 2006.

The jury was released at 3pm yesterday for Justice Heath to hear legal
arguments from the defence and the Crown.

The case is expected to start again this morning.