'I could see the veins in his eyes': Violence sparked by Covid opinions at Salvation Army store described in court

The Salvation Army Family Store in Taradale, Napier. Photo / Google Streetview

A verbal exchange about Covid-19 between strangers in a Salvation Army shop led to punches being thrown, a man being knocked unconscious, and another facing a jury trial on assault charges.

"I knocked that motherf..... out," Napier man Stephen Raniera Rangi Elliot said in a self-recorded video which was played to the Napier District Court on Monday.

"What's up with these middle-aged f.....g white boys... who think they can take on someone like me?" Elliot said in the video he recorded outside the Salvation Army shop soon after the incident took place.

"I'm 140 f.....g kilos. I've been doing martial arts all my life and I train with weights every f.....g day. What, what goes through their f.....g head?"

Elliot, 45, appeared in the court charged with assault with intent to injure and a count of assaulting a female, after the dispute with a man and his wife who were browsing in the store after dropping off goods.

The court was told that the male complainant, Anthony O'Brien, was punched unconscious and his wife was thrown to the floor after Elliot had loudly expressed an opinion doubting the seriousness of Covid and O'Brien responded, "Look mate, you're talking s...".

Crown prosecutor James Bridgman said Elliot knocked O'Brien to the ground and punched him in the head six times during the altercation on January 26 last year, in the Salvation Army Family Shop in Taradale, Napier.

He was left with a black eye and several scratches.

But the court was also told that O'Brien had thrown the first punch after Elliot backed him against a display cabinet.

Defence counsel Leo Lafferty said the issue of self-defence would be raised.

"Mr Elliot was always acting in self-defence. He was always defending himself," Lafferty said.

The man's wife, Sharon O'Toole, said her husband had challenged Elliot about his Covid opinions because her mother was dying with Covid in an English hospital.

O'Brien said Elliot had said loudly in the shop that he did not believe Covid existed or, if it did, it was no worse than a cold, and he was not going to wear a mask.

He said that Elliot had been "peddling dangerous lies and disinformation" and he went to tell him he was wrong.

Asked by Lafferty if he wanted to pick a fight, O'Brien responded: "I wanted to pick an argument."

He said Elliot then pushed him back about four metres against a display cabinet, tried to headbutt him and threatened his life. He said Elliot told him: "Let's go outside, I'll f.....g kill you."

O'Brien said his wife tried to intervene and Elliot grabbed her by the neck and pushed her to the side.

"I punched him... as hard as I could," O'Brien said.

"You hit him in the head to cause maximum effect," Lafferty said.

"I hit him in the head to get him off my wife," said O'Brien, who in response to questions from Judge Russell Collins said he was 58 years old at the time, 175cm tall, weighed 80kg and had never boxed or been involved in martial arts.

Photos were shown to the jury of a fingernail scratch on Sharon O'Toole's neck and bruising on her arms.

She said she hit her neck on the counter as she went down. She had difficulty swallowing for several days, bruising for a week and a half and a sore neck for four or five months.

At one point, as she tried to stand in between Elliot and her husband on the ground, Elliot was so close, "I could see the veins in his eyes".

The jury of six women and five men is continuing. One juror has been discharged.