KEY POINTS:
Relaxing with a beer at Milford Beach, sweethearts Denis Khotchenko and Valeriya Nesterova didn't worry when a young man approached their car.
They were unwinding in their red Mercedes around midnight on January 14 when the stranger asked for a drink and started chatting.
Nothing seemed amiss until, say police, the stranger asked: "Have you seen a real gangster?" Khotchenko saw three other men around the car and he tried to drive off.
The 25-year-old told North Shore District Court - on the day before he and Nesterova married - that he was hit eight times, some of the blows coming from a blunt instrument.
"I think I was struck in the head several times, in a row probably, it was a sequence probably within five seconds," he told police soon after the attack. He could hear his fiancee screaming as he was being hit.
"I wasn't able to defend myself.
"So I told [the attacker] 'look, take my car keys, credit card, whatever. That's all I have'. He didn't seem to listen, he just kept screaming: 'Give me money or I'll stab you, give me money or I'll stab you."'
Nesterova escaped by swimming across a river and going to the home of Justice of the Peace Pat Sampson.
When Khotchenko came to, he was desperate to find her - she wasn't a strong swimmer and he feared she had drowned or been kidnapped.
They were later reunited at Middlemore Hospital.
Nesterova, 20, sustained a fractured skull and eye socket while Khotchenko suffered internal bleeding, cuts to his head, dents to his skull, a fractured thumb and a black eye.
Khotchenko was giving evidence during a four-day depositions hearing that ended 10 days ago. Three young men, a youth and a woman face a variety of charges related to that attack, two other attacks on the same night and a fourth during the day.
The Glenfield accused are Harlem Haunui Kirton, Jonathon (Jonno) Paul Wilson, Ruaumoko Taiapa, and a 16-year-old youth from Piha who is being dealt with by the North Shore Youth Court and cannot be identified. Taiapa's mother, Kiriana, has been charged with being an accessory after the fact for allegedly asking associates to help dispose of the weapons used in the assaults.
Danielia Renee Cook and Samuel Beau Tokona gave evidence against Kiriana Taiapa. Tokona allegedly hid a wheel brace and ratchet bar.
The group's 14-hour reign of terror began, police allege, when North Shore resident Daniel Swafford was cycling home around 1am and a car pulled in front of him on Taharoto Rd, Takapuna.
"I thought that was quite dodgy so I just crossed the road on my bike," he said in a witness statement.
Swafford said someone jumped out of the car, chased him and he got away by ditching the bike.
"He [attacker] hit me but he swore when he didn't get me off the bike or anything," Swafford said.
POLICE SAY the group then drove to Milford Beach, attacking Khotchenko and Nesterova, before turning their attention to Ericka Rancourt and her boyfriend Oskar Carroll around 4am.
Rancourt, 21, told the court she and Carroll, 25, had drinks with workmates from Takapuna's Lone Star restaurant before walking home at 2am.
"I vaguely remembering being by a bus stop when a car came towards us," Rancourt said.
"I remember waking up and someone was standing over me. I blacked out and woke up and saw my boyfriend had a pile of vomit around him. I thought it was his brains."
Thanks to passerby Justin Hansen, 34, Rancourt and Carroll were found and taken to hospital. He saw a woman sitting on the verge in Lake Rd and had driven past but reversed when he saw Carroll lying on the road one metre from the kerb, while Rancourt was crying "fiercely" and begging for help.
"Her friend was lying there on the road vomiting. There was a big stream of blood that flowed from his head to a large pool of blood in the gutter."
Rancourt suffered a fractured jaw and needed brain surgery while Carroll had a skull fracture and lacerated ear.
Rancourt's mother, Lynn, was shocked when she arrived at North Shore Hospital.
"She [Ericka] was fully covered in blood from head to toe, and the bed was fully covered in blood," Lynn said in a witness statement.
"She told me: 'I woke up again and there was a dark guy standing on top of me, he hit me and he hit me really hard and he kept hitting me in the face. He broke my jaw, my jaw's broken'. She looked across and saw Oskar in the middle of the road and she [Ericka] said, 'I think he's dead, all I could see was him lying there, and there's white stuff all around his head, he's dead."'
Once nurses removed blood from Rancourt's brutally beaten face her distressed mother recalled seeing a "big circle on her cheek" that resembled a hit with a "whole pipe".
Ambulance officers attended both beaten couples and were called at 6.30pm on Tuesday, January 15, to help a teenager who was allegedly attacked by the same group.
Student Zaid Aqrawe, 17, said he was at Takapuna beach with friends when what seemed like a friendly introduction turned nasty.
Aqrawe told the court a man started chatting before the stranger's associate tried to provoke a fight.
Aqrawe alleged he tried to defuse the situation by walking away but found himself in the firing line.
"He tried to provoke me," Aqrawe said. "He said, 'you've got 30 seconds - if you don't say anything we'll knock you out'."
Aqrawe was punched in the face and kicked in the back of the head before he lost consciousness.
Giving evidence against the group was Clinton John McGinty who faces the lesser charge of injuring with intent. The 19-year-old builder gave evidence in return for a reduced sentence.
McGinty, a friend of Kirton for 10 years, told the court he received a text message between 3am and 5am on Monday, January 15, sent by Kirton from a number he didn't recognise.
That morning he visited Kirton and saw an unfamiliar cell phone Kirton said had been obtained the previous night. On a drive to a barbecue McGinty claimed he saw "bits of blood on the interior" of Kirton's car which Kirton said were from a big fight the previous night.
At the barbecue, discussion turned to a fight which began when Wilson allegedly approached a car. McGinty told the court someone mentioned to the driver, 'Have you seen a real gangster?' McGinty said the driver's "smart" remarks prompted Kirton to hit him with a tyre iron at least three times at one time. According to the conversation McGinty heard Wilson took the object and hit the guy several more times.
McGinty said Kirton told the group Taiapa "smashed the girl". But Taiapa denied it.
Cross-examined by defence lawyer John Moroney, McGinty admitted smoking P in the past but said he was not currently a user.
Taiapa, Wilson and Kirton have been committed for trial in the High Court on a date to be set and Kiriana Taiapa in the District Court.
