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A man is on trial for the alleged “fright response” manslaughter of his partner.
The woman reportedly jumped from a moving vehicle, fearing a severe beating.
The defendant’s son initially provided an account that differed from his father’s, claiming the man punched the woman.
Fury and anguish over spilt rice was all it took for a woman to fatally jump out of a moving vehicle in front of her partner and 10-year-old son.
That was the scenario first painted for police by a man who is now on trial for the alleged “fright response” manslaughter of his longtime partner. But the man’s brief explanation evolved significantly after police shared with him his son’s differing account of what had occurred in the moments before the fatal tumble.
Jurors heard the shifting explanations in the High Court at Auckland today as prosecutors played two interviews with the defendant – one an audio recording taken in the back of a police car as he was driven from Auckland City Hospital to the Manukau Police Station and a formal DVD interview a short time later.
Both the defendant and his partner have ongoing name suppression to protect their identity of their son, who gave evidence after the trial began last week.
Fright-response manslaughter occurs when a victim acts in a manner dangerous to their life out of fear of another person. The Crown has alleged the woman jumped out of the moving vehicle because she feared a severe, continued beating at the hands of her spouse.
But the defendant insisted there was no sustained attack on his part.
Detective Constable Andrew Sawyer told jurors he first spoke to the defendant on McKenzie Rd in Māngere as paramedics were still attending to the man’s partner about 9pm on October 16, 2023.
“She became angry at me. She is stubborn,” he recalled the defendant saying. “She just opened the door and jumped out.”
The trial is taking place in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Nick Reed
The detective later gave the man and his son a ride to Auckland City Hospital and stood back as the defendant loudly wailed, with his son comforting him, he said.
But later that night, the detective recalled, his supervisor informed him that the son had given a different account to another officer who was on the scene. He arrested the defendant about 1.30am for assault on a person in a family relationship and sat with him in the back seat of a patrol car as another detective drove them to the station.
As he had earlier done, the defendant described going out to run errands that night with his partner and son then heading home after they picked up dinner at a local takeaway.
“As I braked, fried rice has come out of the container which is, which was her dinner, which was her food which she had ordered,” he explained in the audio statement. “She asked my son to pass the tray of fried rice. She seen it had come out, she became frustrated, angry and then threatened to jump out of the vehicle and she jumped out of the moving vehicle.
“I stopped and jumped out to do what I can to help her.”
The detective then read aloud his son’s statement to him in full: “My mum and dad were arguing and then Dad was looking for his keys and Mum got mad. Dad then punched my mum in the face and we drove off and Mum jumped out the car.”
The defendant replied: “I don’t know what to say about that. No statement ... He said I punched her in the face?”
Yes, the detective confirmed.
“Must’ve punched her in the face then,” he acknowleded.
The detective asked again to make sure: “Sorry, you said you must have punched her in the face then?”
The defendant said: “If that’s what he said, must’ve. I can’t recall any, myself.”
The detective then revealed another piece of evidence.
“We found fresh blood splatters on the roof of the vehicle,” he said.
The defendant again was at a loss for words.
A man is on trial for "fright response" manslaughter in the High Court at Auckland after his partner fell to her death from a moving car along McKenzie Rd in Māngere. Photo / Google
“I have nothing to say about that,” he said before the recording concluded. “No statement about that, I don’t know. No statement, I don’t know.”
Detective Sawyer said the two sat in silence for the remainder of the ride back to the station but their conversation resumed, recorded on DVD with the defendant’s consent, once they arrived at the station just after 2am.
When asked to recount the sequence of events in his own words again, this time he recalled violence by both him and his partner.
“She noticed that it’s been spilt [the rice] out of the container and we start, uh, arguing, going back and forth,” he said, leaning towards the detective in his seat with a baggy black hoodie pulled over his head. “She is thinging me ... I’ve obviously struck her in the process of trying to stop her from causing an accident while I’m driving, which has therefore made her more angrier and carried on until she has decided to leave, jump out of the vehicle.
“That’s about all I can add on to it.”
He said she was angry because the fried rice was her part of the order.
“ ... It all just blew up from there,” he said. “Once she seen the spilt fried rice it was my fault so I started getting attacked so defending myself from that and stopping the causing of an accident. I’ve obviously struck her in the process and then she has made the decision to just jump out of a moving vehicle.”
Him striking her “made her even more angry”, prompting her decision to jump, he explained.
“She has thrown the whole bowl of fried rice at me, grabbed me by my ponytail, grabbed me by the neck and I’ve had to force her off because I’m driving and ... she has been hit in the face,” he said when asked to describe the exchange again.
“She’s grabbed me and trying to ragdoll me while I’m driving and I’m trying to push her off while I’m driving, nearly crashing in the process so then to get her off I’ve had to, you know, push her off me.”
When asked how long elapsed between when he struck her and when she jumped out, he said “right then” but then clarified: “I can’t say – it just happened so fast.”
“Have you sustained any injuries from today?” the detective asked.
He responded: “Nah, I haven’t sustained anything.”
The defendant estimated the speed of the car had been “60 at the most” when his partner jumped out. The detective asked why the woman would have taken such a risk at that speed.
“Oh, she like done it before but not jumped out,” the defendant replied. “But like opened the door before – I was driving – and threatened to do that. And today she just jumped out. I didn’t think she would jump out.”
After thinking about it some more, the defendant also wanted to emphasise that he had “pushed” his partner during the dispute instead of striking her with a closed fist.
He estimated having pushed her with a seven out of 10 force “to get her off me”, then added: “I’ve hit her backhand.”
The detective pointed out that he had a closed fist when he was demonstrating what had been happening inside the car, but the defendant insisted that was a misunderstanding. The clenched fist had been a demonstration of him gripping the steering wheel, not punching, he said.
The detective then read back the statement from the defendant’s son again in which the boy described a “punch” to his mother’s face.
“Nah, it didn’t happen like that,” the defendant responded this time, emphasising that it “happened so fast for him too”.
The detective wondered aloud why the boy hadn’t described his mother acting aggressively when that’s what the defendant described.
“I don’t know,” the defendant said after a pause. “No statement there. Yeah, I’ve said what I said, that’s what happened. I don’t know what else to say.”
Towards the end of the roughly 43-minute DVD interview, the detective again brought up the fresh blood splatter on the interior roof of the car, asking the defendant to explain it.
“It must have been when she got hit in the face during our scuffle,” he replied.
Crown prosecutors are expected to call their final witness tomorrow.
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.
