Jovan Pora manslaughter trial: Best friend says defendant was upset with Katelyn Rua-Tuhou prior to her death

On Christmas night in 2022, Jovan Pora was settling in for an evening of drinking at his best friend’s Ōtara home when the mood changed with mention of his on-again-off-again girlfriend.

At the same South Auckland home two nights earlier, Pora was told his partner had been acting “sly” and flirtatious with another guest. He didn’t take the gossip well, jurors in the High Court at Auckland were told today at his ongoing kidnap and manslaughter trial.

Just hours later, as Christmas Day ticked over to the early morning hours of Boxing Day, Pora would be accused of kidnapping 19-year-old girlfriend Katelyn Rua-Tuhou from her family’s Manurewa home after they argued inside his car. She would die on an Auckland’s State Highway 20 minutes later, after Pora lost control of his vehicle and hit a barrier as Rua-Tuhou opened his car door - a move that prosecutors have described as a deperate bid to escape her captor.

Pora, 21, is accused of “fright response” manslaughter - a death that occurs when a victim acts in a risky manner out of fear of violence. He has pleaded not guilty, indicating through his lawyer as the trial began last week that Rua-Tuhou had come with him willingly that morning.

Testifying today via audio-video feed from Australia, Te Wairua Mau said he had known the defendant since they were both about 3 and Rua-Tuhou for the several years that his best freind had been dating her. The couple would get into arguments from time-to-time, but nothing ever violent that he witnessed, Mau said, describing it as a “pretty good, average relationship”.

But it had soured, he said, sometime between the two drinking sessions that holiday season - one that had spilled over into the early morning hours of Christmas Eve and the other that had gone from Christmas night to Boxing Day.

“Come here with good intentions, please - it’s Christmas.”

That is what Mau texted the defendant before Pora arrived at his home. He initially testified today that he didn’t remember what the message was in reference to but acknowledged later that it most likely would have been about both Pora and the man his girlfriend allegedly flirted with both planning to be at his get-together.

When the defendant arrived, it didn’t take long before the subject of his girlfriend came up again, Mau recalled, explaining that Pora did not seem to fully understand about the supposed flirty behaviour until they were all together drinking again.

“Did he take it well?” Crown prosecutor Henry Benson-Pope asked the witness.

“Not really,” he replied. “He was like, um, he’s going to break up with Katelyn. He said he was going to go and see her.”

Pora did eventually leave the house, Mau said, explaining that he didn’t want his friend to leave because at that point they had all been drinking. It wasn’t until the next day that he found out Rua-Tuhou had died, he said.

Jovan Pora appears in Manukau District Court in 2023 after being charged with the "fright response" manslaughter of his partner, Katelyn Rua-Tuhou. He is currently on trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Vivienne Feyen, the witness said he knew Rua-Tuhou as someone who “couldn’t handle her drink” and would start yelling and arguing with people when intoxicated. She was someone who could stand up for herself, he also acknowledged when prompted by the defence.

He also agreed with the defence that the “good intentions” text was sent around 7.20pm and Pora didn’t show up for drinks until roughly 10 that night. “So he knew [about the alleged flirting] many, many hours before he arrived at your house,” Feyen suggested and Mau agreed.

Mau acknowledged Pora seemed upset and hurt when they discussed the matter further in person.

“But he wasn’t angry, was he?” Feyen asked, to which the witness answered “no”.

Feyen told jurors in an opening statement last week that her client only turned up at his girlfriend’s family home that morning after a series of messages in which he was told by family to pick her up. He arrived to find her intoxicated, Feyen said, and although the two were arguing Rua-Tuhou left with the defendant willingly.

Jurors also heard today from multiple bystanders who arrived at the scene of the crash during Rua-Tuhou’s last minutes of life.

“My eyes were drawn to a lady lying on the road,” witness Penina Lui, who was training to be a registered nurse at the time, said in a written statement that was read aloud in court. “I pulled over to the shoulder of the road to offer to help.”

The first person to arrive to Rua-Tuhou, she noticed that the victim was still breathing very slowly, but she felt her pulse fading.

“I knew at this point she wasn’t going to survive,” the witness recalled.

The scene of the incident on State Highway 20 where Katelyn Rua-Tuhou died on Boxing Day morning in 2022. Photo / Hayden Woodward

Next to the woman, the witness said, was a male who was trying to turn the victim over from her stomach to her back.

“Baby, wake up!” she recalled him yelling. “Babe, talk to me!”

Fellow bystander Tilli Peni, a cousin of the prior witness, said in a separate written statement that she was trying to hold the upset man back so that her cousin could have some space to try to help the injured woman.

“He kept crying and calling her name,” Peni told authorities. “The male ended up pulling my hands away and lying next to the lady in the road.”

Paramedic Courtney Robinson, who appeared in person, told jurors she was in uniform and on duty that morning but came across the crash by chance.

“Hurry up, help her!” she recalled the male saying, describing him at different times as quite agitated, angry, upset, pacing and distraught.

He wept and yelled “no!” after Robinson told him the woman had died, she recalled.

“I don’t know,” he responded when the paramedic asked him what had happened.

Ambulance officer Kerry Vanzyl, who arrived on the scene later, recalled approaching Pora to try to provide a medical assessment.

“He told me to ‘f*** off’ and that his girlfriend had just died - I musn’t touch him,” she recalled, describing his demeanour as “quite aggressive - so much so that I took a few steps back”.

Vanzyl recalled apologising and offering her condolences, and again being told to “f*** off”.

“He would wail things like, ‘Just shoot me,’ [and] ‘Just take me to the cells,’ [and] ‘Just kill me now,’” the ambulance officer said. “He kept saying, ‘I should have stopped her,’ over and over again. When I asked him what he meant by that he would get aggressive.”

Vanzyl said he later stood up from the road and gave her a hug before explaining what had happened. He had hit the barrier and when he regained consciousness he couldn’t find his girlfriend, she recalled him explaining. But when police would come within earshot he would go completely quiet until they left, she said of his account.

Eventually, a police officer came back and told him he was under arrest, leading him to a patrol car.

“He didn’t say a word,” Vanzyl told the jury. “He didn’t fight at all.”

The trial continues tomorrow before Justice Mathew Downs and the jury.

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.