Graphic CCTV footage showed the shirtless boyfriend smeared with blood<\/a> and clutching a knife as Faatoia lay dying just out of shot.<\/p>\nBut the defence claims the violence meted out on the patio was irrelevant to the case because, unlike the initial neck wound, the injuries inflicted were \u201cinsignificant\u201d and did not contribute to Faatoia\u2019s death. <\/p>\n
![\"Tomuri]()
Tomuri Place in Mt Wellington was cordoned off after the fatal stabbing at the townhouse on August 31 last year. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n
Giving his closing address yesterday, the woman\u2019s lawyer Philip Hamlin told the jury his client was innocent, and the pair had acted in self-defence. <\/p>\n
Though she had also kicked and stomped the victim as he lay prone on the patio, she did so with bare feet and was not a murderer.<\/p>\n
Hamlin described the terror of Faatoia, a complete stranger who told people he was ex-military, forcing his way into their room in full army fatigues then grabbing the knife from his tactical belt. <\/p>\n
Faatoia had backed the man into a tiny ensuite bathroom before attacking the woman on her bed, Hamlin said. At that point the man grabbed his own knife and used it to protect his girlfriend.<\/p>\n
Though fatally injured and bleeding heavily from his severed jugular, Faatoia continued to fight and the two men fell struggling to the bedroom floor, where Faatoia punched and bit the boyfriend, Hamlin said. The woman then tried to grab Faatoia\u2019s knife from his hand, cutting her finger in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says she\u2019s terrified. She thinks she\u2019s going to be killed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Faatoia wouldn\u2019t die for several minutes and was still talking, mumbling about calling the \u201ctroops\u201d. <\/p>\n
Fearing he was still a danger to them, the couple pushed the intruder out the sliding door, where the man kicked, stomped and stabbed Faatoia, also \u201cdropping the knee\u201d. <\/p>\n
The woman told police Faatoia \u201cwas not stopping, he tried to get back up\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was still screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told police it was \u201ceither us or him\u201d and the couple went into \u201csurvival mode\u201d. <\/p>\n
If her boyfriend hadn\u2019t grabbed a knife, \u201cyou would have been picking me up in a body bag\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
She told police she believed Allcock had sent Faatoia to hurt them, referring to the landlady as a \u201cf***ing pyscho\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact one body even had to be picked up is sad,\u201d the woman said in her interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s someone\u2019s family member lying on the ground. He doesn\u2019t get to go home. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking. That\u2019s going to live with us forever. Just trying to defend ourselves. F***.\u201d <\/p>\n
After learning she was being taken into custody, she told officers that despite Faatoia storming her house and coming at her with a knife, \u201cnow I\u2019m getting arrested\u201d.<\/p>\n
She also urged police to view the CCTV. <\/p>\n
While the Crown argued the boyfriend \u201cfinished off\u201d Faatoia out of anger while the victim was defenceless, Hamlin told the jury the couple had no intention of killing the 40-year-old that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a complete stranger. They had no motivation to hurt this man at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two acted to defend themselves and nothing more than that. The force they used was proportionate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamlin dismissed Crown arguments about the graphic nature of the CCTV footage and suggestions the patio attack was causative to Faatoia\u2019s death by accelerating blood loss, saying expert medical evidence proved that was wrong. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t make any difference.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also stressed that his client had nothing to do with the fatal injury inflicted in the bedroom and was not culpable for Faatoia\u2019s killing. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was going to die in minutes. What she did on the patio had no effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"An]()
An aerial shot of the homicide scene on Tomuri Place in Auckland’s Mt Wellington. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n
Summing up the case before sending the jury out to begin deliberating yesterday afternoon, Justice James MacGillivray said the CCTV footage was \u201chorrible to watch\u201d. But he cautioned the jury not to let emotional responses cloud their decision-making. <\/p>\n
He reiterated that the defendants were innocent until proven guilty, and the Crown had to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. <\/p>\n
While neither defendant elected to give evidence during the four-week trial, the jury should not draw any negative inference, he said. <\/p>\n
While the law allowed for someone to defend themselves if they were under attack, self-defence was \u201cnot a blank cheque\u201d, the judge said. <\/p>\n
The force used must be proportionate and reasonable in the circumstances. This would be an important matter for the jury to consider in this case. <\/p>\n
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat are you supposed to do when a big-arse man like that … is charging at you with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,9539,8414,1968,545,2082,5830,37151,42,8916,10053,61094,6187,10048,43,5764,56452,427,165,1961,40,38,41,39,13118,1455,52,102],"class_list":["post-153545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-content","tag-couple","tag-discusses","tag-extreme","tag-for","tag-fought","tag-graphic","tag-headlines","tag-homicide","tag-house","tag-knife","tag-lives","tag-mt","tag-news","tag-soldier","tag-stormed","tag-story","tag-their","tag-this","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-violence","tag-warning","tag-wellington","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}