Eugene Bareman wants to help people see a problem and the need to address it.
In 2023, the head coach at Auckland’s City Kickboxing gym launched the Walk Without Fear Trust to advocate for harsher punishments for and raise awareness around the impact of coward punches – attacks in which the victim has no warning and no way to defend themselves.
It was a direct response to the team losing one of its athletes, Fau Vake, who died in hospital after such an offence in 2021. His attacker was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for manslaughter.
Coward punches were again in the news last month when New Plymouth man Daniel Nganeko was killed after being attacked outside a rugby clubroom. A 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter and will be sentenced in October.
Bareman said he had heard plenty of stories about such attacks since launching the trust, but many go unreported as the victims can get up and dust themselves off.
“Those could easily go the other way and they could end up very different,” Bareman said.
“That’s what we’re bringing awareness to. We’re just trying to let people know that there is a problem out there and we need to do something about it.”
Among their work, Bareman and some of the country’s top mixed martial artists, including Israel Adesanya, Carlos Ulberg and Navajo Stirling, have brought attention to such attacks through talks in schools, which has led to plans for activations around the country.
Their first such event was in Christchurch last weekend, with plans for others later in the year, and a raffle for a $341,000 BMW has been launched to help with funding. Adesanya also choreographed a dance to portray the human element of the cause, which he performed with Ulberg, Stirling and Bareman.
“One thing that we’ve found, and one thing that has stirred us into this, is that we have gone into schools a lot – only the region, in Auckland – and we get some massive responses, some really good responses, some really positive responses. For whatever reason, young men under the age of 25 really listen to these guys, the Israels, the Carloses and Navajos,” Bareman said.
In late June, the Government announced it would introduce specific offences for coward punches with maximum penalties up to life imprisonment if the victim dies.
Those changes mean one-punch attacks that cause grievous bodily harm would be classed as assault offences and attract the associated maximum penalties. When an offender intended to cause injury or acted with reckless disregard for safety, the maximum penalty was eight years’ imprisonment. If they intended to cause grievous bodily harm, that would be upgraded to a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment. A culpable homicide offence for a one-punch attack that results in death holds a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The charges are similar to those seen across Australia, where most states have harsh penalties for coward punches.
UFC middleweight Cameron Rowston, who will make his promotional debut in Perth this month, said that event provided a good opportunity to raise awareness around the issue.
“It’s a really good chance to promote what’s happening and just create awareness around social violence and stuff that can just ruin people’s lives,” Rowston said.
“I think it’s a really good chance, because we have such a big platform and maybe the demographic who like watching the fights, they’re kind of the people we’re targeting.”
While some have suggested there’s an irony in combat sports athletes campaigning for such a cause, Rowston brushed those views off as uneducated opinions.
“We come in here and train violence because we know we don’t have to use violence, we don’t want to use violence out there,” he said.
“When you read stuff on the news of coward punches happening or like big brawls in the street happening and people getting hurt, I think a lot of the time the people that are involved could do with some kind of training here like that, and they probably wouldn’t put themselves in that scenario; they’d have a bit more self-control and they’d have a bit more awareness about what violence can lead to.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.