A young South African man who died after being assaulted on a night out in Wellington was attacked from behind, his mother says.
Natasha Smith said her son, 21-year-old Luke Smith, would not so much as harm a fly, and that he was simply walking with a friend on the way to a nightclub when he suffered his fatal injuries.
Luke and a friend were on their way to meet a friend at the club, who was going to give them a lift home to Upper Hutt, she told the Herald.
She said Luke’s friend was walking a bit ahead of him, and turned back to see Luke speaking to someone, and called for him to follow.
The man then allegedly hit Luke after he had turned to walk away.
“There’s footage that shows there was no fight, Luke just turned his back and this guy [allegedly] hit him . . . Even if there was an argument that we don’t know of, you turn your back and you walk away,” Smith said.
“Luke is not an aggressive child . . . [he] would rather walk away,” she said.
“I know my child personally, I gave birth to him. That’s what made it so hard for us to accept.”
She had been expecting Luke home that night, but received a call from Luke’s friend shortly after 3am saying her son had been assaulted and was “bleeding severely”.
“I said to the guy, this friend of his, ‘stay with him, stay with him,’” Smith said.
When the friend called to say Luke was being rushed to Wellington Hospital, Smith and her husband, Brian Smith, hurried there as well.
On arrival, doctors were doing a CT scan on Luke. After receiving the results, they broke the hard news to his parents.
“[The doctor said] Luke had severe brain damage and we will hope for the swelling to go down, and if it’s not going down it’s fatal.”
Their son was placed on life support for the night, and in the morning doctors told the Smiths that Luke was brain dead, but that they would keep him on life support for another 24 hours to see if there were any changes.
There were no changes and Luke did not respond to tests at the end of the 24 hours, and his parents made the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support.
He died shortly after, and is being farewelled by his South African and African community in a memorial service tomorrow, at the Trentham Masonic Centre in Upper Hutt.
Smith said the New Zealand Government must step up and pay for his funeral and repatriation costs, adding one funeral parlour had quoted them $20,000.
“This happened in this country and he was a visitor here,” she said.
“When you apply to New Zealand, then they paint you this dream that it is a safe country. We moved out of South Africa because of the violence there, to provide safety for my child and us, and look what happened here.
“You know, I’m coming from Cape Town . . . it’s the murder capital of South Africa, we’re coming from there. My child was safe.”
She referred to other serious assaults locally, including recent reports from a mother whose 26-year-old son was attacked while trying to help some girls that were being “hassled”, and is still recovering from the assault six months later.
Smith said she had also spoken to one mother whose son was now permanently disabled after an assault.
“There was a lot of other incidents but it was swept under the mat. I’m not going to do that with my child, I’m going to stand up for my child, and I’m going to stand up for his rights. They messed with the wrong family.”
Smith intends to spend some time in South African before coming back for the court case, and will decide after the court case whether she wants to remain living in New Zealand.
“I want to stay in South Africa for a while and grieve, and when I come back I’m strong enough for the case,” she said.
“At this point, if I see him I might do things that I don’t want to do. I don’t care losing my life or go to jail, my life is over. He took my life.
“I’m so frustrated, I’m angry. I think I need professional help because I’m so angry. I’m angry, I’m broken, I don’t know what to feel.
“I don’t know the guy. I don’t know his face, I don’t know his name because they suppress his name, but my child’s name is all over ... He was a good boy.”
She said Luke was a “gentleman” who had made many friendships since moving to New Zealand earlier this year.
“We were shocked. When we go back on the Monday to the hospital to switch off the life support, there was so many people there.”
Luke had big dreams and wanted to learn a trade, but was told he could not take the course he wanted in New Zealand. He was planning to return to South Africa in November, then move back to New Zealand once he had learned his trade.
“We used to sit together and he would show me on the laptop, ‘mummy, this is my plans for the future’. I said to him ‘Luke, what do you want to do?’ He said ‘I want to go to South Africa, do my trade and come back’.”
Being a close family, she and her husband had both cried over their son’s decision to leave, but accepted it, she said.
Luke was their only child, as Smith was told it would be unsafe for her to carry another pregnancy after he was born.
“I said ‘Luke you must give mummy six grandchildren one day’ and he said to me ‘yes, mummy, I will, but you must look after them’.
“I was so looking forward to my grandchildren.”
Smith said a great deal had been taken from her, and she wanted justice for her boy.
Another friend, Dave Walters, told the Herald that Luke had been in good spirits the night of his death, even knowing he was soon to leave New Zealand.
“He was positive about what he was going to do in South Africa and that he could get to a point where he could return to New Zealand to be with his parents again.
“It’s so sad that he’s returning to South Africa in a box, and never to return.”
Walters last saw Luke on the night of his death at an event for the South African community in Wellington.
“He was so excited to be out and to mix with fellow South Africans and people from Africa,” he said.
“We interacted throughout the night, he spoke to me about his future plans. He was just a really, really nice guy.”
Luke’s close friend Judah described him as “the most kind hearted person you could ever meet”.
“He was charismatic, funny, he loved life and loved interacting with different people.
“He always made sure the people around him were taken care of.”
A Givealittle page has now been set up to help Luke’s family with funeral and repatriation costs.
A 29-year-old man was earlier arrested and charged with wounding with reckless disregard for Luke’s safety, and police said further charges were possible.
The defendant appeared in the Wellington District Court on Monday, where he was granted interim name suppression.
Anyone with information on the case can update police online now or call 105 and use the reference number 241006/5414.
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Children have been stopped from walking their usual route home from school.