The court had earlier heard how Mr Tiepa-Ranapia's body was found outside a house in Mansfield St, Ohauiti, on November 30 last year, a few doors away from the party. At the opening of his evidence, Eruera described how he and the other co-accuseds, his wife Hyacin Eruera and their associate Paul William Taki, had travelled to the party after his step-daughter arrived home to say she had been attacked.
Eruera said he told her to write everything down while he went to the Mansfield St house to retrieve a cellphone and sort it out face-to-face.
He said he phoned his friend Paul Taki in case the situation flared up and they had to get out fast. "I did not take a weapon, I was not anticipating a fight."
On the way to the house he stopped beside two men walking on Ohauiti Rd, one of whom was wearing a red Mongrel Mob cap. He said he was involved in a scuffle lasting a few seconds before getting back in the car.
Eruera was then cross-examined by Crown solicitor Greg Hollister-Jones who grilled him on a different version of events based on evidence by prosecution witnesses. Mr Hollister-Jones came straight to the point: "You stabbed him."
Eruera responded: "I believe I stabbed him."
He put it to Eruera: "You have known all along you did that."
"No I didn't," he replied, saying he believed at the time it was a punch.
Mr Hollister-Jones said, "Yes, with a knife in that hand, with the blade exposed."
Eruera said that when he lashed out he did not believe he stabbed him.
He was accused of sitting through the trial while his stepdaughter got the blame for stabbing Mr Tiepa-Ranapia after she was thrown out of the party. Eruera responded that he believed she was being cross-examined. He repeatedly said he did not come forward with his explanation for the stabbing because he was going through a process.
"I had to ride the process before I gave my side of the story ... part of the case was that all the evidence is clear."
Eruera's denial that the assault on one of the boys on the road was anything but a scuffle saw Mr Hollister-Jones say it was just another example of him trying to avoid responsibility.
Eruera responded that he was responsible for the stabbing but he did not do the other things he was accused of.
Mr Hollister-Jones dismissed as "just rubbish" the claim that Eruera did not know that putting a knife at that spot of a person's throat could kill.
Hyacin Eruera and Taki will not be giving evidence. They have also been charged with murder, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
The trial presided over by Justice Christian Whata resumes today with summings up by Mr Hollister-Jones and the defendants' lawyers.