The defendant is then seen “jerking” his arm back and forth, which Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson says was the moment he wrenched a large, orange-handled hunting knife from Faatoia’s neck.
The defendant then makes two further “violent stabbing motions”, inflicting wounds to the back of Faatoia’s head and to his buttocks.
Only at that point does the attack end.
“It’s difficult evidence to watch,” Paterson told the jury. “Quite frankly it is over the top.”
Delivering her closing arguments yesterday in the High Court at Auckland after a four-week trial, Paterson described the attack as “furious and frenzied”, and “excessive and completely disproportionate”.
The actions caught on a CCTV camera that day – August 31, 2024 at a new build townhouse in Mt Wellington’s Tomuri Place – were inflicted in anger and “intended to kill”.
“This attack was completely unnecessary, gratuitous violence.
“It went well beyond what was needed in self-defence.”
Finauga Faatoia and wife Sarah. Faatoia died after being stabbed in a home invasion in Mt Wellington last year.
The couple are both charged with Faatoia’s murder, of which the woman is accused of being a party to, because of her actions in encouraging the violence.
However, they say they were simply defending themselves after being attacked in their home.
They told police they feared for their lives after Faatoia, 40, stormed into their bedroom dressed in full military fatigues and armed with a large Bear Grylls “survival knife” – threatening them and telling them to “get the f*** out”.
“It was either us or him,” the woman later told police.
‘Rough them up’
Faatoia is a former Shortland Street actor who was into martial arts and claimed to have served 16 tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Australian Defence Force.
The trial earlier heard he’d arrived at the property after being hired by his landlord Rebecca Allcock to get rid of the two troublesome tenants.
Allcock told Faatoia the defendants – who both have name suppression – were behind on their rent and dealing drugs.
The court heard Allcock’s business had previously fallen foul of the Tenancy Tribunal so she needed a “work around” to evict the pair.
She turned to Faatoia, who had helped mediate other tenancy disputes. He warned Allcock he might need to “rough them up a bit” to get the couple to leave.
“I’m fine with that,” she responded.
She claimed the plan was simply for Faatoia to pose as a flatmate while looking for evidence of drug use.
But he drove to the property on his motorbike armed with two knives, a wire garrote and rope, intending to intimidate the couple – a move that monumentally backfired with tragic results.
Bursting in through the barricaded door, he threw a chair across the room then grabbed the survival knife from his “tactical belt”.
The woman started recording the incident on her phone and called 111.
Tomuri Place in Mt Wellington was cordoned off after the fatal stabbing at the townhouse on August 31 last year. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Faatoia told the couple, “The police won’t get here by the time I’m done with you” before demanding the woman’s phone.
The man then emerged from an en suite clutching his own knife, plunging the blade from behind into Faatoia’s neck.
Two excerpts from the 111 call were played to the jury. In the first, banging and screaming could be heard along with the words, “get him babe, f***ing get him”, Paterson told the court.
In the next excerpt, she said “gagging and gurgling sounds” could be heard as Faatoia bled out over several minutes from the 15.1cm neck wound.
The man would later tell police, “I stabbed his throat out. I head-locked him and twisted his head on the knife”.
Paterson said though Faatoia should never have gone to the property to intimidate the couple, he was quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed.
Once the fatal neck injury had been inflicted he was no longer a threat and was “trying to get away”.
But rather than letting him succumb to his injuries or providing medical attention, the couple continued the attack, dragging him outside to a patio where he was repeatedly kicked and stomped about the body and head, and stabbed twice more.
Paterson said Faatoia was still alive at this point. The woman later told police “he still had heaps of life left in him and I was terrified”.
“It’s hard to believe something like this would happen in suburban Auckland,” Paterson said.
“Mr Faatoia did not have to die. The defendants’ actions made sure that he did. They continued attacking and finished him off.”
‘It was clear he was there to use force’
However, the man’s lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade disputed aspects of the Crown case. While the stab wounds inflicted on the patio were “possibly gratuitous”, they did not contribute to Faatoia’s death, which was caused solely by blood loss from his significant neck injury.
Kincade said Faatoia was “a man with a mission” that fateful day. He told people he was ex-military and arrived at the couple’s house dressed as a soldier and armed with an array of weapons.
“It was clear that he was there to use force.”
She said Faatoia attacked the woman on her bed and the couple believed he was going to kill them. They had only a split second to react and “no time to think”.
Allcock had manipulated Faatoia and instigated the “extraordinary” chain of events out of “selfishness and greed”.
Due to her questionable business practices, she needed Faatoia’s “muscle” to get rid of the couple and was prepared to pay “big money” for the job.
The mobile phone video recording captured the man pleading with Faatoia after he produced the knife, saying, “Brother, don’t pull that on me brother. That’s a breach of my rights”.
An aerial shot of the homicide scene on Tomuri Place in Auckland’s Mt Wellington. Photo / Hayden Woodward
As Faatoia attacked the woman on her bed, the man grabbed his own knife and stabbed the intruder to protect her.
But Faatoia continued to struggle, Kincade told the jury, so the couple pulled him outside and fought for their lives until he was no longer a threat.
The woman later told police the incident had been “f***ing terrifying” and they went into “survival mode”.
“It was either us or him.
“We defended ourselves. He tried to stab us so we stabbed him.”
The man told police he was “just protecting my missus”.
“If I didn’t have the knife me and my missus would be dead.”
The trial continues before Justice James MacGillivray.
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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