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A Northland man who died after being bashed by a gang of youths in Sydney on Boxing Day is believed to be the victim of a racist attack.
Jim Tautari, 50, was walking home from a fast food restaurant when he was attacked by a gang of up to 10 teenagers, who beat him with baseball bats and golf clubs.
"It was definitely racist," said Tautari's mother Janie Henare in Moerewa.
She said a witness told family in Sydney that Tautari had been racially abused in a McDonald's restaurant before the attack. Henare said "10 white boys" had beaten her son. He died in hospital the next day.
A woman in the St Clair area of Sydney, who gave her name as Rita, told the Daily Telegraph she heard Tautari's body slam against an awning over her front window.
She found him covered in blood, with wounds exposing his skull. She asked him whether he knew his attackers, and he said he didn't.
"He said that they called him 'a f***ing black c***'. He turned around and they just started clobbering him," she said.
"This is happening too much to our people over there," said Henare. "He was not a violent person.
"He didn't deserve that. I never want to go back to Australia again."
Moerewa is in mourning for the second time in three months, after the violent death of another of its sons in Sydney. In September Shane Hau, 42, was killed in an alleged hit and run.
The Hau case caused a transtasman row when authorities refused to release his body intact for a traditional Maori burial.
His family were told Hau's brain had been removed for tests and could not be immediately returned along with the rest of his body.
The delay provoked anger and sadness in Moerewa.
Meanwhile, Henare said her family was waiting for news on the police investigation. Henare said Tautari was the father of four children, the youngest seven years old.
"He had so many friends. He had a band and he was doing karaoke over there. He's always been a singer," said Henare.
"He was a great fan of Elvis. He was a very mellow person. He wouldn't hurt a fly."
She said her son had been in Australia for five years.
"He was ready to come home. I said to him, 'You need to come home.' But there's no money over here," she said.
"He was sick, he wasn't well. Jim had his home back here. He said he would be going home soon."
