Knife lodged in face 'felt like a punch'

Vance Paraki Tuheke (left) denies attempted murder. The x-ray image (right) shows the knife stuck in Esley Aaron James' face.

A man stabbed in the face in a row on Auckland's North Shore earlier this year has told a court how he locked himself in a bathroom with a 150mm knife buried in his face.

Esley Aaron James told North Shore District Court he felt a punch on the side of his face during a scuffle at a friend's house and after that he could not see properly.

He was visiting a friend at her Albany home when Vance Tuheke made several angry phone calls and later arrived holding a knife in his left hand.

During a scuffle he tripped over and as he was getting to his feet he felt a punch to the side of his face which dazed him.

"My eyes were all crooked and I couldn't see properly. I touched the side of my head and I felt metal poking out the side of my head and lots of blood," he told the court.

An x-ray picture taken by doctors showed the blade sitting sideways across his face in the nasal cavity behind his nose. Surgeons removed the knife and he was not expected to have any long lasting effects.

Vance Paraki Tuheke, 31, has been charged with attempted murder, and Ngaire Jean Chisholm and Elisha Barbara Brett are alleged to have assisted him to evade arrest.

All three denied the charges in a depositions hearing at North Shore District Court before justices of the peace Jim Varney and Bruce Lilly.

Mr James said during one of the phonecalls he spoke to the person and told him who he was, why he was there, and said there was no need to get hostile, but the man became very agitated.

"I tried to reason with him but he was swearing and making threats," Mr James said.

He said Tuheke later arrived with a knife and began threatening and swearing.

"As he was lunging towards me he was saying 'I am going to f... you up, I am going to kill you'," he told the court.

After he was stabbed, Brett took Tuheke out and he called for someone else in the house to call an ambulance, the court heard.

Mr James said he then crawled into the bathroom, locked the door and sat against the vanity as he waited for the ambulance.

- NZPA