Christopher Tean Salt, 36, had asked jurors in the High Court at Auckland to acquit him due to self-defence. If they didn’t agree to that, he urged them to find him guilty of manslaughter instead of murder.
But after roughly five hours of deliberations on Monday and Tuesday, the jurors declined both requests. The decision was unanimous, although the group was down to 10 members after two others were dismissed earlier in the two-week trial.
Justice Michael Robinson set a sentencing date for March.
Salt elected to give evidence during the trial, explaining that he had hoped to deliver a single knockout blow to 25-year-old Tofimua Oneonepata Matagi inside the game room of Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill on the night of August 31 last year. He mistakenly thought the victim was a 501 deportee from Australia who had a gun and was planning to use it on him.
Prosecutors characterised Salt’s testimony as ridiculous. They responded by repeatedly playing for jurors graphic CCTV footage of the attack and its aftermath - in which Salt is seen rifling through Matagi’s pockets and taking his wallet.
Robbery or reckless
There were two routes in which jurors could have found him guilty of murder. One way was if they determined he was attempting to inflict grievous bodily injury on Matagi to facilitate a robbery. But even if they didn’t think a robbery was the motive, he could still be liable for murder if he knew that he was likely to cause death while inflicting the injuries on Matagi and decided to take that risk anyway.
Jurors didn’t have to be unanimous about whether it was murder due to recklessness or due to a fatal robbery attempt. The verdict did not reveal their thoughts on the matter.
A CCTV still from Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, shows Christopher Salt (left) and Tofimua Matagi (right) playing darts together shortly before Salt fatally assaulted him. The footage was played for jurors at Salt's High Court at Auckland murder trial. Photo / Supplied
Crown prosecutor Matthew Nathan argued during his closing address on Friday that the “only natural inference” was that Salt had formulated a plan to take Matagi’s belongings sometime before the final, fatal stomp.
Regardless, he said, it’s unfathomable that someone would not know there was a risk of death “by punching Tofi to the head then kicking him in the face then stomping and stomping and stomping and stomping again”.
“That was just a risk he simply disregarded,” Nathan said.
Prosecutors described Matagi’s demeanour right before he was attacked as smiling and laughing until Salt suddenly turned aggressive and got in his face. Matagi raised his hand slightly in what appeared to be an effort to defuse the situation before returning his concentration to the dart board.
“It’s obvious Tofi doesn’t know how to take that,” Nathan said of Salt’s sudden mood change. “He is bemused, he is confused and the last thing he wants to do is threaten this man.”
Tofimua Matagi, 25, died after an incident at a bar and restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, on August 31 last year.
After the attack, Nathan noted, Salt didn’t appear to be concerned with a potential gun. If he had been, he would have been content to pat down the victim, the prosecutor said. But instead, the defendant’s hands were seen going deep into the Matagi’s pockets as he gathered the victim’s phone, wallet passport and baseball cap.
“He’s clearly and obviously searching every inch of those pockets to remove his property, and that’s exactly what he does,” the prosecutor said. “The fact that select items were returned does not absolve him in any way.”
501 fear defence
But defence lawyer Emma Priest countered during her own closing address on Monday that the trial wasn’t about how prosecutors interpreted the CCTV. She noted that their more privileged worldview would be very different than Salt’s.
The CCTV footage was “confronting”, she acknowledged, but not as important as prosecutors made it out to be because her client already acknowledged responsibility for causing the death. The most important job for jurors, she suggested, was to understand what Salt was thinking at the time he inflicted the blows.
“Your verdicts will rest entirely on what Mr Salt knew and intended at the time of the assault,” she said, repeating that her client is still in disbelief that someone died as a result of his actions.
Police tape cordons off Richardson's Restaurant in Mt Roskill following a homicide in the early hours of September 1, 2023.
She urged jurors to think about boxing matches or UFC fights, in which blows are delivered with no intent to cause death. Salt testified that he had been involved in about 20 fights over his lifetime, most of which ended with him delivering a knockout blow. No one had died previously so he had no reason to worry about Matagi’s safety, he explained.
Priest described her client as an “honest and open witness” who told the truth “even when it didn’t serve him”.
She started out the trial by asking jurors to find her client guilty of manslaughter but stepped back her request this week after Salt brought up issues of self-defence while giving evidence.
Salt said he had started a game of darts with Matagi that night to try to keep the peace after a cousin told the defendant in Tongan that he wanted to give Matagi a beating. But Matagi’s mood turned from jovial to sour, he said, after Salt refused to sell him drugs on credit then showed no interest in letting Matagi introduce him to a drug supplier. Salt got nervous, he said, when Matagi started making comments that made it sound like he was interested in robbing the bar. At that point, he said, he assumed the new acquaintance must be a 501 deportee from Australia - described as “a different breed of people” who have “nothing to lose”.
The final straw, the defendant said, was when Matagi allegedly said, “I’ll shoot you.” Salt said he sprung into action just moments later, although he denied blindsiding the victim.
“It’s just how it looks on the camera,” he told jurors.
A CCTV still from Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, shows Christopher Salt (left) taking a swing at Tofimua Matagi (right) while the victm wasn't looking. Salt was found guilty of murder in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Supplied
The suddenness of the attack - and its viscousness - was consistent with Salt fearing a gun and responding in a way that left “no room for error”, Priest argued.
“Mr Matagi was drunk, he didn’t read the room, he was talking smack, he was over-confident,” she said, explaining that the victim was so intoxicated that night that he would have been three times the legal alcohol limit for driving. “I suggest to you Mr Matagi was out of his depth.”
‘Right to come home safely’
Matagi’s family sat through the duration of the trial but would frequently file outside the courtroom or stare at the ground as the footage of the violent final moments of his consciousness was repeatedly played.
His parents quietly embraced and wiped away tears after the jury’s foreman announced the murder verdict yesterday afternoon.
One of the last things jurors were told before closing addresses was that Matagi had no criminal history in New Zealand, Niue or Australia - the three countries in which he had lived.
His father, Reverend Dr Matagi Vilitama, previously told the Herald that more than 1000 people had attended his Auckland funeral and other services were held in Niue. The attendance, he said, was a testament to who he really was - a friendly, kind person who valued friendships and looked out for the underdog.
Rev Dr Matagi Vilitama (left) and wife Joanna Matagi (right) with a photo of their son Tofi Matagi, who died after being assaulted on August 31, 2023. Christopher Salt has been found guilty of murder. Photo / Michael Craig
Matagi’s parents lived in Australia and he had been working as a mechanic in Niue but moved to New Zealand in June last year after injuring his back. He decided to help support his little sister, who had recently started university in New Zealand, the family said.
He and his sister lived with their grandmother in Auckland and he was careful to check in with her, even on the last night of his life.
“Nana, I’m going to be a little bit late tonight,” he had texted, according to the family.
The family started to worry when his grandmother noticed in the middle of the night his boots were not in the place where he usually left them after returning home.
He had gotten a powder-coating job upon arriving in New Zealand and was going out that night with two new workmates. It’s not surprising, prosecutors said, that he would have been open to making new friends at the bar as he worked to establish a new life in Auckland.
“CCTV shows very clearly he was getting on well with everyone,” Nathan said. “He had a right to expect to come home safely.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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