Taunts led to boy-racer's stabbing

By PATRICK GOWER

A brawl between two rival boy-racer groups in an Auckland service station forecourt ended with a man being slashed across the chest with a craft knife, a court was told yesterday.

Members of the "Xzecutivez" and "Outlaws" clashed at the Gull Service Station in Te Irirangi Drive, East Tamaki, early last January 13.

The fight left Xzecutivez member Martin Mulivai with a 20cm chest wound that required 25 stitches.

James Faleatogia Mataafi, a 20-year-old Manurewa labourer, was committed for trial on the charge of wounding Mr Mulivai with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, after a depositions hearing in the Manukau District Court yesterday.

A police summary of facts said South Auckland had a problem with boy-racers driving around in packs, fighting each other and causing general disorder.

Giving evidence, Mr Mulivai said he and four other carloads of Xzecutivez went to the service station about 2.30am because "that was where it was happening".

The Xzecutivez were a "car club" that used X stickers on their doors and boots and Xzecutivez on the back of their cars to signal membership, he said.

About four cars with Outlaws stickers on them were among the crowds of boy-racers already gathered in the forecourt for street races when Mr Mulivai pulled up in his red Toyota MR2.

An Outlaws member began abusing him and "the X's". A crowd began to build as both groups argued.

Mr Mulivai grabbed a metre-long vacuum cleaner pipe from the back of his car to confront the Outlaws, before his cousin approached the main antagonist and punched him.

He said the antagonist then went back to "his boys", the Outlaws, returning soon after to ask for a "one-on-one".

The two groups faced off again and a series of fights started throughout the forecourt.

The court heard how members of the Xzecutivez used a window-washing stick and Machete as weapons and of witnesses hearing talk of guns from the Outlaws.

Mr Mulivai said he was chased away by three or four Outlaws members and turned to see Mataafi coming at him with a craft knife. Mataafi, whom he knew from school, was "psyched up".

Mr Mulivai said he tackled Mataafi in self-defence and tried to wrestle the knife off him. He was leaning back on the bonnet of a car when he broke free and lifted up his shirt to find he was covered in blood, with the wound so deep "you could see veins".

He said he had now recovered.

Under cross-examination, Mr Mulivai denied the Xzecutivez had been in fights earlier in the night and said he kept the vacuum cleaner pipe on his back seat to clean his car.

A friend of Mr Mulivai's, Ane Sipaie, described Mataafi running at him with the knife, which had 7-10cm of the blade exposed. Sipaie saw him lunge with his right hand three or four times and some blades break off.

Mr Mulivai's 14-year-old younger brother, Tailua, said that after the slashing "I heard the two guys that had started the fight yelling something about guns and going to the boots of their cars".

He did not see any guns.