At 12.51am, he walked over to Winitana, who was sitting on a bollard waiting for an Uber. <\/p>\n
Hastings man Andy Winitana died in hospital when his life support was switched off two days after he was punched. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
They talked together for about three minutes and, according to CCTV footage, both appeared calm. At times, Winitana was laughing.<\/p>\n
A friend of Winitana who was nearby throughout was not paying much attention to the conversation, but did not consider that they were talking aggressively. <\/p>\n
Then Aranui punched his victim.<\/p>\n
Killer\u2019s police interview<\/p>\n
Aranui\u2019s account of what happened was recorded in a police interview conducted on the following afternoon and detailed in the High Court<\/a> at Napier<\/a> today.<\/p>\n He told police he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs at the time and in \u201chappy-as mode\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just like, I was around so much people that wanted to fight, it was like I ended up just wanting to fight,\u201d Aranui told the police.<\/p>\n He walked up to Winitana, who was wearing a light blue polo shirt, tan-coloured trousers and dress shoes. <\/p>\n Using a racist slur, he asked Winitana if his blue shirt meant he was associated with the Black Power gang, whose colour is blue. <\/p>\n Aranui said his victim was not aggressive and \u201clooked like a good fella\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just once I said, \u2018F*** you, I\u2019ll just knock you out and smash you\u2019,\u201d Aranui told police.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t really mean that. I didn\u2019t really think I was gonna do that when I said that.\u201d<\/p>\n Aranui said Winitana \u201cgot in my face\u201d but added: \u201cWell, I don\u2019t f***ing blame him. I was f***ing talking s***\u201d.<\/p>\n He claimed his victim then said, \u201cOh go on then, do it\u201d, so he punched him.<\/p>\n The CCTV footage showed Aranui drew his right arm back and threw what appeared to be a full-force punch to Winitana\u2019s face.<\/p>\n Winitana fell backwards without breaking his fall and the back of his head hit the tar seal.<\/p>\n A Crown summary of facts said Winitana was probably unconscious before he hit the ground. <\/p>\n He never regained consciousness and was taken to Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Hospital in Hastings<\/a> by ambulance.<\/p>\n Brain scans revealed a catastrophic brain injury.<\/p>\n He was placed on life support but after further tests showed he was brain-dead it was turned off and Winitana died on February 3. <\/p>\n Winitana was the managing director of two companies, iScaffold Aotearoa and the construction firm Whakamana.<\/p>\n Hastings district councillor Henare O\u2019Keefe previously told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today<\/a> he worked as a volunteer alongside Winitana, helping prisoners gain building qualifications at Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Prison and in the post-Cyclone Gabrielle<\/a> clean-up.<\/p>\n \u201c[He was] one of our kaiwhakamana volunteers. Those are volunteers that can go into any prison to see anyone at any time, and Andy loved going in there, even though he was busy with his own business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He recalled him helping one prisoner who was about to be released. <\/p>\n \u201cRight there on the spot, Andy offered him a job,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018That doesn\u2019t happen very often for complete strangers to come together like that\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a colossus of a man in many ways: physically, but kind and humble and caring.\u201d<\/p>\n Aranui was remanded in custody to be sentenced in May. <\/p>\n 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\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aranui had been denied entry to a waterfront bar and was hanging around the wharf area outside. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,18214,181192,60504,1561,6255,181193,1328,6101,1976,46346,3375,9933,13840,37113,15035,111,43,139,69,1118,675,101263,44549,58218,6859,1337,151735,102],"class_list":["post-338547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admits","tag-andy","tag-aranui","tag-associate","tag-bay","tag-businessman","tag-fella","tag-gang","tag-good","tag-hawkes","tag-jay","tag-killed","tag-later","tag-like","tag-looked","tag-manslaughter","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-police","tag-punch","tag-respected","tag-single","tag-told","tag-victim","tag-winitana","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338547","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=338547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}West Quay, Ahuriri, is a popular waterfront hospitality area in Napier. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n