Man stabbed in neck during argument

A man was stabbed in the neck at Verrans Corner this afternoon. Photo / Eveline Jenkin

A man was stabbed in the back of his neck following an altercation on the North Shore this afternoon.

Police were called to the Mobil Service Station on Verran Rd around 12.20pm after two men were confronted by around 15 men in three cars.

One of the men was stabbed in the neck after an argument broke out.

His injuries are not life threatening and attending police spoke with a number of the people involved.

James Solomona, a friend of the victim, said it was unprovoked.

"We just came to fill up some gas and those guys in the other car came up and thought they'd be Mr Hardballs and try and have a fight with us," he told One News.

"One of our friends was walking up, and one of them (attacker) snuck up behind him (victim) and stabbed him in the back of the neck."

However, Liban Khoury, whose 18-year-old brother Joseph told her he was responsible for the stabbing, said he acted to save his brother.

Joseph had gone to the Mobil to buy bait and ice with his older brother, Eden, so they could go fishing.

The larger group of men started "hassling" them and refused to stop, so Joseph ran to the car and got a pair of scissors.

Ms Khoury said she had been around the corner at the BP station on Mokoia Rd when she saw the police cars, fire engines and ambulances scream past.

"I just had a feeling it was them [her brothers]" she said, adding that racial tensions in the area were rife. (Her family is Maori-Lebanese).

"My brothers have totally gone away from that scene... they just go fishing now."

But she said there was often trouble in the area.

"This is what we have to deal with all the time," she said.

"We've come from Manurewa in South Auckland, moved to Birkenhead to get away from it and it's the same bloody thing."

- NZ HERALD STAFF