A representative West Coast rugby player kicked an unconscious Reefton man so hard that his head "whipped back" and rebounded off a pub wall, a Greymouth District Court jury has heard.
Crown prosecutor Marcus Zintl told the jury yesterday that the accused, Kevin Moore, had been drinking at the Inangahua Arms Hotel on July 3 last year after contesting a pool tournament at Wilsons Hotel earlier in the day.
His alleged victim, David Older, had also played in the pool tournament. Older was annoyed about a previous incident and made his way to a bar, where he attacked Moore while he was playing table tennis, punching him three times in the head.
Moore retaliated with six or seven punches to Older's head while holding him by the shirt. When he let go, Older, unconscious, fell to the floor, where Moore kicked him three times in the face with such force that his head "whipped back" and rebounded off the nearby wall, leaving him lying on the ground with blood running out of his mouth.
He also kicked Older in the stomach before the hotel owner, Murray Lee, restrained him and ordered him out of the bar. Moore told Mr Lee he knew what he had done was wrong, but that he had been punched first.