The “harrowing case” of a man accused of murdering his girlfriend in Northland in 2019 has begun with a jury trial in the High Court in Whangārei.

Samuel Hamuera Pou​, 60, is accused of murdering Bridget Simmonds​ in 2019, between February 23 and March 14.

Simmonds was reported missing in March 2019, until her remains were found in June 2020.

The case is a retrial, but on Monday Justice Tracey Walker instructed the jury not to speculate about the reasons why the case is being heard again, which are suppressed.

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“Retrials happen for many different reasons,” she told the jury of seven men and four women.

Pou is accused of murdering 42-year-old Simmonds by beating her to death at a makeshift campsite on a family farm in Parakao, west of Whangārei.

He admitted to police to hitting her for about 90 minutes, delivering more than 100 blows, until she stopped breathing, Crown prosecutor Mike Smith said in his opening address.

But Pou told police he concentrated his blows on Simmonds’ legs and had no intention to kill her, Smith said.

Pou then concealed Simmonds’ body on the property and initially told police he had no idea where she was.

Simmonds’ disappearance was treated as a missing person case for more than a year.

Because her remains were effectively just a skeleton by the time police recovered her, experts were unable to determine an exact cause of death, Smith said.

But the skeleton showed fractures to her legs, right wrist and a finger on her right hand, he said.

Pou assaulted Simmonds on two other occasions, in January and February 2019, causing a laceration to her ear and damage to her eye, Smith said.

Defence lawyer Arthur Fairley told the jury this was a “harrowing case”.

“Mr Pou has not conducted himself with glory in this case. Quite frankly, his conduct towards his female partners is appalling.”

But Fairley said the key point is whether Pou meant to murder Simmonds when he beat her, or knew she could die from the assault and recklessly went ahead anyway.

The defence’s argument is that he did not have murderous intent, Fairley said, although he admitted his client was guilty of manslaughter.

During lunch, one of the jurors was dismissed after it was revealed he was the neighbour of Pou’s family member.

The juror did not know this before the trial started, Justice Walker told the remaining 11 jurors.

Simmonds urged to seek help for intimate partner abuse

Simmonds’ mental health nurse Athene​ Pattinson​ told her client to get help from Women’s Refuge or to have a safety plan in place, after Simmonds was beaten in January and February by her then partner.

After the second incident in February, Simmonds had a swollen, weeping eye and was blue in the face, Pattinson said.

As there was no emergency accommodation available in Whangārei, the nurse arranged for Simmonds to get funding for a bus to her mother’s house in the Bay of Islands for a couple of weeks.

After this time, Pattinson became worried when she could not contact her client and ended up contacting police.

The trial is expected to run for two to three weeks.