Errors, Arrest Warrants and Meth Abuse: The Nigel Bom Inquest (Day 2 of 5)

18 May 2025. The New Zealand Reporter. This article: the Nigel Bom inquest of 5 to 9, May 2025. Updated to 26 May 2025. Peter E C Simmonds

‘Justice for Nigel’ read t-shirts worn by supporters of deceased New Brighton man Nigel Bom outside the Christchurch courthouse. Wearing shorts is Bom’s mother Debbie Bom. To the right of his portrait is Krystal Martin, who helped The Wigram (The New Zealand Reporter’s predecessor) break his tragic story in 2023. Bom was found dead in his flat in Fred Price Courts in March 2021. The cause of death has not been resolved.

Click here for day 1.

Close Associate D

Close Associate D told the inquest that she'd seen Bom carrying a bag that had powder inside and never saw injection marks on his body. But, to her knowledge, she did not believe he would use intravenous drugs, nor did she believe so. He was bullied and always wore long sleeves, she said. Meth was "that complex was full of things you wouldn't believe." Bom told her he knew people who sold drugs and had come out of prison.

In response to the accusation, she denied she or Close Associate A had provided Bom with meth, saying "[Close Associate A] does not associate" with that world.

On 6 January 2021-the date of supposed "boot-ride", she had woken up and at some point had seen that Bom had been hit. She could tell. "Are you all right [redacted]," she asked. Bom had been accused of stealing a car. Close Associate D did know whose car it was. Bom said Tenant B had driven him to Close Associate A's home in the stolen car and entered. Somebody had let them into the house.

The people who had come to the house said Bom had taken his vehicle. Bom denied that. Tools and a credit card had also been taken. He was asked where Tenant B was. Tenant B was at the complex. Close Associate D saw Bom had a black eye. They were trying to put Bom in a car but put a stop to that.

She drove Bom to the complex in her car. They followed in big, black car. She remembered there being a girl and an 18-year-old boy.

Someone knocked on Tenant B's door. But no one answered. The tools were found around the back of Tenant B's house. (A woman had used the credit card at a BP station.) Someone in the group said "we're still not happy with the thing".

They tried to take him, Close Associate D told the inquest. "He's coming with us," she recounted. But she stopped that just before Tenant B turned up carrying shopping bags.

Bom was in her car the whole time.

Close Associate D called Close Associate C, who was upset and hit Tenant B for putting Bom in trouble. Close Associate D's ex-partner did same thing.

She then took Bom back to Close Associate A’s house.

Van Dam moved to 24 March 2021, when Close Associate D last saw Bom. Close Associate D had seen the missing video of Bom's arrival and said he arrived around 10:30pm. It was a "pretty big house," said Close Associate D.

"[Close Associate D] are you down there," Bom called to her in the garage. Close Associate A was upstairs but, in accordance with Close Associate E's evidence, she could have been with Close Associate A.

Bom came down while she was smoking and he asked her to return his $20. He "threw it at me and buggered off," said Close Associate D. The conversation just happened, and she wasn't sure why he was there. She couldn't give him any money. He said "I was trying to ring you" to Close Associate A, she opined.

Close Associate D said Bom would come because he was [redacted]. He would come in for a minute and then go.

Legal counsel van Dam asked Close Associate D about the video of him running into the New Brighton Road home, referring to it as "hop-skipped". He was there for a few minutes, she said.

As for his mood, he was happyish, "busy", and not concerned.

Van Dam moved to the period between his final visit to the home on Wednesday, 24 March 2021 and the day his body was discovered on 30 March.

It did cross her mind a couple of times (, presumably to check in on him because of his absence). On one occasion she passed his house with Close Associate A. As a result, she thought Close Associate A had contacted the tenancy manager from the Otautahi Community Housing Trust.

She knew Bom was dead when Tenant A visited. "I have to let you [know] Nigel's passed away." Are you sure? she asked.

She, Close Associate A and a third person drove to Fred Price Courts. People were around his unit. "Cops pretty much came to us," she told the inquest. They told them to leave. She refused at start. Close Associate D became upset at this point in her testimony.

"We had a lot of questions going around our heads."

"What happened to him?"

Police just told them to go, she recalled.

Tenant A said "I'm sorry I had to tell you this".

"She [Close Associate A] was just coming to terms [Bom] had just passed away".

Close Associate A recalled OCHT wanted them to clean up the flat within a couple of days and had four days to get the stuff out. Close Associate D didn't want Close Associate A doing it. The smell was pretty bad.

Then someone came to collect items from the flat.

Close Associate D and Close Associate B went to his flat. One night "a few people in the complex,...[Tenant D] turned up" as did [Tenant E]. Others came over to pass on their condolences. No one knew they were coming. Tenant D grabbed a silver bag, black duffel bag, shoes, and "bits and pieces". Close Associate D had been told already by another person in complex Tenant D had been staying there.

Bom was friends with Tenant D. "He was that kind of kind person...[he would] let someone stay with him." She thought they had probably dated earlier on in his life.

Close Associate D could see things in his home that were a girl’s, such as hand cream, nail polish, and perfume. Don't recall seeing them - probably put them in a bag.

"She pretty much snuck in[to] the room," remembered Close Associate D. She hadn't come to talk and that had upset Close Associate D, because she had known Tenant D for a long time. She recalled Close Associate D sister-in-law asking where Tenant D had gone.

When Close Associate D had arrived at the flat, she found things had been moved. Unlike the photo taken of the room, the bed base was leaning against the wall and there was a hat on the couch. (A photo corroborated her account.) Close Associate D found Bom's bag in the washing machine, after it had been washed. She recalled it was his pocket but also assumed it had fallen out of his pants. (Sergeant Steel later told Close Associate D, Bom had been removed from his flat without the bed being stripped, with a photograph backing this up.

Close Associate D knew items had been cleaned as they were damp. She put them in the in dryer. But she wasn't sure when she found the bag. She also found plenty of socks. And a couple of t-shirts but she couldn't remember. The trousers might have been jeans. (Van Dam referred to Close Associate B's evidence they were jeans.)

Close Associate D had seen that bag come out of his wallet in the past and had seen white powder in the past.

Of the black handprint, she recalled seeing it at the side of the stripped mattress that had been stood up against the wall.

Bom said she was the only one to clean up and that her brother "Nigel always had clean hands". "He would do his washing", she said, but he "always had dishes". She found "women's stuff around [the] couch", a black plastic bag, a jacket that not his, and foundation. "Quite a bit of stuff that was girlyish." She knew Tenant D was staying there.

Returning to the handprint issue, she said she took photos, because "Nigel always had clean hands". (One or more would be provided to Police Officer Steele.)

Close Associate D couldn't say the handprint had been there when Bom's body was found. (Later it would be shown Police had found it at or about the time of his body being discovered.)

Van Dam asked Close Associate D about a message her sister Close Associate B had sent to Police on 14 April 2021. She told Police she thought Bom had been subject to foul play and of a bottle of blue liquid.

One of the sisters found a hat on the couch in the flat. Close Associate D said it was beige or camel-coloured and didn't look new. When she turned it over, she found a stain around hat and hairs fell out. The stain looked like body fluid, not a sweat mark. Reddish colour. "Kind of looked like that". (She later told Sergeant Steel When found hat - it was dirty looking.)

She found "heaps" of hair through the hat, with strands evenly all around it. Things had crossed her mind the whole time she was cleaning the hat, she told the court. "Small things that crossed my mind." Things that I didn't think should be there, she said. "There were a lot of [alcohol] cans."

Of the blue liquid in a Mountain Dew bottle, she "didn't think anything of it". But the next day she took it back out of the rubbish. The Bottle had been "right by his bed". There was also a towel in another room with blue liquid on it. Police, it was found didn't took photograph of it. (Later, when Police came to collect the bottle from her Close Associate A's home, she couldn't find it, meaning Police couldn't test it.

From her recollection, Police didn't think there was foul play. "They kind of shrugged off" things mentioned to them, she said. Close Associate D gave the towel to detective MacPherson, who would later give evidence during the inquest.

Sergeant Steele asked Bom about the period of non-contact between 24-30 March 2021. For her, sometimes it was normal for him to be out of contact; sometimes it was not normal. He always either would pop in, to the family home or would send a message to her.

"We did notice it had been a long time".

Would contact be daily or every few days? he asked. It "did seem a bit long..." but she was busy with children.

Former OCHT tenancy manager, retired

She was responsible for more than 30 (or 32) units at Fred Price Courts and had been responsible for Bom's flat at no.6 for roughly 2 and half years. She had known him for 3 years, describing him as living alone and a "fragile individual". She was aware he had a drug problem. But she was not sure.

She had been contacted and decided to do a welfare check. At 11:10am she and a contractor called Lorraine Wiliam went to Bom's flat. The door, she recalled, had not been opened. The smell was "unpleasant" and there were many flies around the front window. A few neighbours had arrived and were asking what had happened. Police then arrived. She called Bom's Close Associate A. "She hadn't seen Nigel since Thursday, 25 March to grab spare key," the tenancy manager recalled.

Regarding his health, she recalled he was frail, had health issues, and "a tremor".

He was "quite a small man, quite thin" and was "always pleasant [and] very connected to mum and whanau."