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A Gisborne District Court jury has found a meat worker not guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm over a stabbing at a meatworks.
Phillip Paul Tahuri, 21, of Wairoa in the northern Hawke's Bay, a Black Power associate, was charged with stabbing a Mongrel Mob member at Affco Wairoa on November 14, 2006.
Tahuri had told the jury he tried to get away from the man, who was kicking and punching him, but was scared because he thought others in the room were on his attacker's side.
"So I grabbed my knife and tried waving it to see if he would back off...but he didn't back off, he kept coming.
"I don't know if he jumped into it. I don't really know because everything was too fast...everything just stopped after that."
He did not stab the man intentionally, he told the jury.
The man suffered two lacerations to his abdomen. Crown prosecutor Nicola Graham asked Tahuri if the man ran into the knife twice.
"Yeah he must have," Tuhuri said.
Defence counsel Mark Sceats said there was no proof beyond reasonable doubt that Tahuri intended to cause the man serious harm.
Nobody, except Tahuri and the injured man, knew what happened that afternoon.
But the jury could not hear from the injured man because he would not co-operate with police.
Closing the case for the Crown, Miss Graham said Tahuri stabbed the man deliberately and the jury should put any suggestion that it was accidental to one side.
How likely was it for a person to run into a knife being waved at them once, let alone twice, she asked.
If the jury found that Tahuri stabbed the man in retaliation, to punish him for attacking in the first place, then that was not a defence, Miss Graham said.
- NZPA
