Salvation Army store punch-up: Hastings TikTok poster Stephen Elliot guilty of posting harmful communications

A man jailed for assaulting a couple in a Salvation Army second-hand shop later called one of them a “middle-aged racist coloniser from Britain” in an obscenity-laden TikTok video.

Stephen Raniera Rangi Elliot also called both the man and his wife “ugly” and alleged they made racial slurs against him during the physical altercation in Napier in January 2021.

The couple deny this, and say they feared for their safety after the TikTok was posted, saying commenters on the social media platform demanded that they be named so others could “finish the job off”.

Elliot, 38, was found guilty of two charges of causing harm by posting digital communications after a judge-alone trial in the Hastings District Court on Monday.

One charge related to the husband and one to the wife, and it was the second time Elliot had gone on trial for his actions against the British-born couple.

In September 2022, he was found guilty by a jury of charges of assault with intent to injure and assault on a female after the 2021 punch-up in the Salvation Army shop. The husband had objected to something Elliot was saying to a shop staff member about Covid-19.

Elliot was saying that his brother in France had caught the disease and it was no worse than a cold or the flu. The man objected to this because his mother-in-law was dying with Covid in an English hospital.

During the three-day jury trial for the assault charges, the man admitted he threw the first punch in the dispute, but only after he had been backed up against a display cabinet and Elliot had pushed his wife.

Elliot spent four months in prison on remand before being sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment, with leave to apply for home detention, on January 17 last year.

Stephen Elliot. Photo / NZME

By March 8, he was out of prison and posted the first of two TikToks about his victims.

“I f***ing hate violence but sometimes it is an evil necessity, and the fact is I am good at it,” he said.

He said the “coward of an ugly husband” and “middle-aged racist coloniser from Britain” had punched him first in the face.

He also alleged they called him a “dirty f***ing P***”, using a racial slur sometimes used in the United Kingdom to describe people of South Asian descent.

In court on Monday, the husband said Elliot’s claims he was racially abused were untrue.

“I was quite shocked because I abhor racism and the claims that Mr Elliot made in the video about what I had said to him were not even plausible,” the husband said.

“It was as if someone had Googled, ‘What do British racist people say?’” he said.

Couple worried by comments on TikTok

Although Elliot did not name the couple in the incident, he had mentioned the date and place it occurred, meaning they could be identified through media coverage of the earlier trial.

The husband called this “an incitement for other people to do Mr Elliot’s dirty work”.

Commenters on the TikTok were saying Elliot “should have stomped on him” or “kicked his f***ing head in”.

The husband said this made him worried they would be attacked – and that feeling persisted to this day.

The wife told the court that she had been “traumatised all over again” when the TikTok was posted.

She had trouble sleeping and had sought counselling to help her come to terms with what had happened.

She was also nervous about her safety after reading comments posted below the video.

The TikTok is no longer available to be viewed. Elliot told the trial he had set it to be visible only to his “friends and followers” on March 8.

However, Judge Jim Large accepted the evidence of Constable Andy Lang, who told the court he had accessed the video as if he were a member of the public.

TikToks intended to relate experience of prison, Elliot says

In response to questions from his counsel, Ben Frendin, Elliot said he had “several thousand” TikTok followers and had posted videos to give his side of the story, and to tell of his experiences in jail.

The video complained about, and one posted the following day, were the “beginning of the journey” and he had not named the complainants as he wanted to “negate any connection to them”.

Judge Large said Elliot’s evidence was “unworthy of belief” and he found the couple credible and reliable. He accepted their evidence that they had suffered emotional distress.

Judge Large found Elliot guilty of the charges and remanded him on bail for sentence in August.

His bail conditions included not having any contact with the victims and “not to post on TikTok in any manner”.

The second video Elliot posted about the victims was in response to the first being taken down by TikTok while it was investigated for breaching community guidelines. It was later reinstated.

In the second video, Elliot said: “You are never going to silence me. I am going to keep making videos and pumping out content. Too many people love me.”

Stephen Elliot is the brother of former All Black and Hurricanes and Chiefs rugby player Hika Elliot.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.