A brutal bar assault that cracked a man’s skull has left him and his partner dismayed police failed to find and arrest the attacker – even though they supplied photos and explained where he could be found.
CCTV footage of the July 2023 assault shows the attacker walking up behind the Whangārei man with a solid glass beer jug in his hand before swinging it overarm into the back of his victim’s head.
The Herald has since identified the man, who denies the attack, and found he is currently facing charges from a second bar attack that happened in November 2024.
The discovery of the later attack – an alleged stabbing – has raised questions as to whether it would have even happened if police had arrested him after the initial brawl.
A fresh investigation is now under way after a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority by private investigator Mike Sabin, who helped the Whangārei man and his partner gather evidence and build a case against the attacker.
With police announcing a new investigation, the Herald has opted not to name the man so as not to interfere with any charges that might be laid.
It has been 19 months since the couple, who did not want their names used, were out with friends in Whangārei’s Triple Crown Sports Bar.
As the small group got drinks and began to play pool, the night took a dark turn as a woman among them was accosted by a man in a blue shirt from a neighbouring group over a $10 debt she apparently owed.
The woman later told police she didn’t know the man, who roughly pushed her backwards when she refused to give him money.
The scene turned ugly as the man tried to push his way towards the woman while his friends – much larger than the couple and the three others they were out with – started to muscle their way into the group.
At one stage, the man who would later be injured with the beer jug was violently shoved back into a wall by the blue-shirted man, prompting a retaliatory punch.
Bar staff then joined the fray to separate the two groups with the couple and friends moving to the other end of the bar – followed by the blue-shirted man. That man was later prosecuted for punching the female partner of the injured man and another woman.
But there have been no charges laid against the blue-shirted man’s drinking companion that night – a heavyset former security guard who watched the fight move to the other side of the bar before casually picking up a heavy glass jug.
CCTV footage shows the man blew the conflict apart by smashing the jug into the back of the Whangārei man’s head then swinging it again at the man’s best mate who scrabbled across the pub floor to escape.
The Whangārei woman said her partner was “unconscious on his feet” as CCTV shows the blue-shirted man grabbing the hair atop the victim’s head and using it to force his face down into repeated uppercuts.
She said: “I went to grab his head. He’s just got blind-shotted. I grabbed [his] head and I was holding him, waiting for the punch.”
Her partner has no recollection of being struck by the jug or being punched afterwards: “I just switched off.”
The couple, who both work and do not have criminal records, arrived at the bar shortly after 10pm. She wasn’t drinking as she was the designated driver for the night and he had only a few drinks over the evening.
Just 20 minutes later, they were sitting outside – his bleeding head cradled by her arms – as members of the other group circled back “asking us to keep fighting”, she said. At that point, police arrived and the other group disappeared.
Blood was pouring from his head and his partner told the Herald: “He was awake at the time but he wasn’t there. He was losing a lot of blood really fast. I was worried for him.”
It was in the hour that followed that the Whangārei woman considered errors were made, which led to trouble for police progressing the investigation.
She said the female officer assigned to them did not interview the couple about what happened, appeared to not take notes and the photographs she took of her partner’s injuries appear to have not been kept by police.
“She got the story wrong from the start because she didn’t talk to anyone,” the man told the Herald.
A hospital assessment led to stitches and a finding the man had suffered a concussion, a fractured skull, a broken tooth and a broken nose.
While police did carry out interviews about a week later, the focus was on the blue-shirted man punching two women with little heed paid to the attack on the Whangārei man.
“This was only about [my partner],” he said. “I wasn’t even part of the case.”
She said: “I didn’t understand it. No one else walked away from that night with life-changing injuries. They really swept that under the rug.”
The woman then suffered the shock of seeing the man who had swung the jug wearing a security guard’s uniform at Pak’nSave in Whangārei.
“As I was walking up to Pak’nSave, my heart dropped. I saw his face. I had a panic attack. I can’t get away. Whangārei is too small.”
Dismayed at the lack of action, and knowing the man was in the community, she sought help and contacted Sabin to ask how she could get a copy of the CCTV footage.
At this stage, she was determined to gather the evidence and present it to police. Sabin pulled together evidence including recovering footage of the fight through an Official Information Act request to police.
Sabin built a package of evidence – CCTV footage, a photograph of the alleged attacker at work at Pak’nSave and medical evidence – but still couldn’t interest police. A complaint to the IPCA led to it asking police to have another look at the case.
The incident still affects their lives. When the couple visited Rainbow’s End in Auckland for her birthday, the man spilled out of a ride he had previously enjoyed, struggling to find his feet, faint, pale and vomiting.
A trip overseas is also on hold for fear altitude would trigger a similar – or worse – reaction.
She said: “I’ve just lost faith in police. I don’t trust the system. We were all told as kids, they’re the ones to call when you’re in trouble. That’s not the case nowadays in our experience. I just feel like no one has been held accountable for their actions.”
Sabin’s help was uplifting, she said. “He gave us more help than the cops did.”
The Herald has linked the man in the images to a Whangārei Heads man with the same appearance, haircut, jewellery, clothing and tattoo as that seen in the CCTV footage.
When contacted, the man said he knew which bar the Herald referenced. However, when it was explained which incident was in focus, he said: “I don’t remember anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about. No comment.”
Asked if the lawyer for his current charges would speak, he said: “I can’t remember the name of the lawyer.”
The security company for which the man worked no longer employed him. The owner said he knew nothing of either incident and each would have been an instant sacking offence if he were still employed. “The guy just up and left. Didn’t turn up for his shift and never came back.”
Sabin said he questioned whether the second incident in November 2024 would have happened if police had acted over the assault on the Whangārei man.
“The reason [the couple] had reached out to me was because they’d failed at every attempt to get police interested, let alone investigate, what they knew had happened.”
Whangārei Area Commander Inspector Maria Nordstrom said police had reviewed the file after a complaint to the IPCA and “a decision has been made to reopen the investigation”.
She said the new investigation limited what police could say around decisions made since the assault in July 2023.
Nordstrom said a sergeant had been assigned to the investigation and “numerous inquiries will be under way in due course”. She said the couple would be kept updated.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He first joined the Herald in 2004.
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