Christopher Tean Salt told jurors at his murder trial that he used full force to kick Tofimua Matagi in the head and stomp on him four times.
He said he thought Matagi was a 501 refuge and that he had a gun, neither of which turned out to be true.
Prosecutors countered Salt’s testimony with CCTV of the attack, describing his explanation as “nonsense”.
A murder defendant who blindsided an unsuspecting darts opponent with a punch to the head inside a Mt Roskill bar before kicking the man’s face and stomping on his head four times has told a jury his intent that night had initially been to serve as a peacemaker.
But Christopher Tean Salt, 36, acknowledged his tactic switched from pacifism to a burst of sudden, extreme violence. It came, he claimed, after a succession of faux pas during the dart game in which the new acquaintance first tried to buy drugs from him on credit, then suggested he could set Salt up with a drug supplier, then seemed to seek advice on how to rob the bar before the final insult: threatening Salt’s life.
“I’ll f***ing shoot you,” are the last words Salt said he heard from victim Tofimua Oneonepata Matagi, 25, before Salt decided to deliver what he hoped would be a single knockout blow.
“I kicked him and I stomped him because I didn’t want him to shoot me,” Salt repeatedly claimed from the witness box in the High Court at Auckland over the past two days. “I was worried about the gun – nothing else.”
Prosecutors called the explanation ridiculous – a clear contradiction, they said, to the high-quality, graphic CCTV footage of the attack that has been played for jurors repeatedly since Salt’s trial began last week.
Matagi never moved again of his own accord after the final head stomp, which was recorded at 10.56pm. While rifling through Matagi’s clothes, Salt removed his wallet, placing it in Matagi’s baseball cap along with his passport and phone before walking out of the room with the items. He returned about four minutes later, going through Matagi’s pockets a second time before picking up the man’s darts scattered on the floor next to him and throwing them at the board one last time.
An ambulance wouldn’t be called for almost an hour and 40 minutes, after Matagi’s friends eventually found him and yelled to the barman for help.
“Everything happened so fast, I just wanted to disarm him,” Salt told jurors, acknowledging that he found no gun.
Crown prosecutor Matthew Nathan responded: “Did you want to disarm him of his wallet?”
‘Trying to come across gangster’
Matangi was new to Auckland, having previously lived in Australia and Niue, when he went to Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant for the first time with two workmates on the night of August 31 last year. He met Salt, a self-described regular at the bar, in the smoking area before footage showed the two going to the otherwise empty game room.
Salt testified he had actually suggested a game of pool because his cousin, also in the smoking area, had told him in Tongan that he was about to give Matagi a beating. He said he didn’t know what had angered his cousin, who has since died so couldn’t give evidence of his own, but he thought it best to defuse the situation.
A CCTV still from Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, shows Christopher Salt (left) and Tofimua Matagi playing darts together shortly before Salt fatally assaulted him. The footage has been played for jurors at Salt's murder trial in the High Court at Auckland.
A CCTV still from Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill.
Footage showed what appeared at first to be a jovial, at-first, game between the two.
There is no sound to the video, but Salt said the new acquaintance began to ask about scoring drugs from him “on tick” – the underworld equivalent of buy now, pay later – and Salt refused. Matagi then said he could “get stuff for cheap” for Salt because he had “a hook up”, the defendant said.
“I told him I didn’t need a hook up or anything,” Salt said.
It’s around that time, he testified, that Matagi started “acting agitated” and “kind of annoyed”.
“At this time I’m thinking he’s a 501,” Salt said, going on to describe deportees from Australia as “a different breed of people” who have “nothing to lose”. Matagi was not a deportee.
“He seemed like he wasn’t a gangster – a good boy but trying to come across as a gangster,” Salt told the jury, explaining that the victim claimed to know “heaps of gang people in Aus”.
Police officer stands guard outside Richardson's Restaurant in Mt Roskill following a homicide.
He said Matagi then started asking strange questions about the bar, such as what time it was supposed to close and how often people who won big on the pokies got robbed.
“I’m thinking that he might want to rob the place – I don’t know,” Salt said.
The shooting threat was the last straw, the defendant explained.
‘Thought he’d wake up’
“I kind of felt sorry for him because I just gave him a hiding and he had no gun on him,” Salt said, explaining that he took the other items from the victim because he was hoping to identify him and find out who he’d come to the bar with. “At the time I was just tunnel vision – just looking for a weapon. My intention was to give it back to him.
“I thought he’d wake up and everything would be all good.”
Tofimua Matagi, 25, died after an incident at a bar and restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, on August 31, 2023.
In an opening address just before Salt’s testimony, defence lawyer Emma Priest emphasised that her client knows he is responsible for having taken a life that night. But he should be found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder because he had no murderous intent when delivering the blows, she suggested.
“Only Mr Salt can tell you what his knowledge and his intentions were that night, and that is the critical issue to this trial,” she said.
Jurors can find Salt guilty of murder if they agree with one of two scenarios suggested by prosecutors: either he intended to cause grievous bodily harm in the course of a robbery or he simply assaulted Matagi knowing that death was likely to occur and he recklessly took that risk anyway.
Salt was adamant he didn’t realise there was a risk. He said he’s been involved in about 20 fights previously - most of them ending with him knocking out the other person but occasionally with him on the receiving end of a concussion – and death had never been the result before.
‘Doesn’t make much sense’
Prosecutors were sceptical, not only of Salt’s claim he didn’t understand the danger of his actions but also that Matangi had actually said any of the things recounted by the defendant.
“Mr Salt, that’s quite a story,” Nathan said as he began his lengthy cross-examination, which stretched over both days. “You know you’re taking an oath to tell the truth, correct?”
The courtroom lights were repeatedly turned on and off for the duration of the questioning that followed as Nathan projected CCTV footage on to the wall – comparing the video with what Salt said occurred. At no point did it look like Salt’s cousin was showing any anger at Matagi in the smoking area, Nathan noted.
Similarly, the footage from the game room did not appear to show Matagi as threatening or angry – instead, it showed him smiling. In fact, Nathan noted, Matagi at one point put his hand up in a placating sort of manner as the defendant approached him aggressively. Only moments later, Salt would throw the punch as Matagi focused on throwing his next dart.
Salt said he would never “king hit” or blindside someone with a punch.
“It’s just how it looks on the camera,” he said, suggesting that he was actually in front of Matagi when he delivered the blow.
A CCTV still from Richardson’s Bar and Restaurant in Mt Roskill, Auckland, shows Christopher Salt taking a swing at Tofimua Matagi while the victim wasn't looking. Salt is on trial for murder. His lawyer has asked jurors to instead find him guilty of manslaughter.
But it was clear from the footage that Matagi didn’t see it coming, as he didn’t react or flinch before falling to the ground.
It also made no sense, Nathan suggested, that Matagi would try to score drugs from a person he’d just met but then in the next breath brag that he had his own drugs connection.
“Then casing the joint for a robbery, the young man decides to entrust you?” Nathan asked before adding with apparent sarcasm: “I mean, you’re a trustworthy sort of person, aren’t you, Mr Salt?
“Does that make much sense to you either? He basically entrusts you with his plan to rob Richardson’s Bar? That’s nonsense, isn’t it – complete nonsense?”
Salt responded: “It’s the truth.”
The defendant did agree with the prosecutor that he was seen on video taking Matagi’s property without his consent, even if he did later bring some of it back. In the smoking area, he was seen pulling coins out of the wallet and handing them to another man – with no intention, he acknowledged, that the money would be returned to the unconscious man.
“I suggest that’s called theft,” Nathan said.
“No,” the defendant responded. “They wanted to take the whole thing. I said that I was going to give back the wallet.”
Salt was also filmed handing some cards from the wallet to a woman who then used one of them to purchase drinks. Salt said he thought she was just going to look at the cards and didn’t realise she had kept one.
Full-force attack
Salt, who estimated his weight to be between 110 and 120kg and described himself as “strong”, also acknowledged that he used all his strength to kick Matagi in the face and stomp on his head each time. Prosecutors played over and over again the footage of Matagi curling into the foetal position as he was attacked, moving his arms only to attempt to cover his head.
Salt noted that he stopped as soon as he noticed Matagi was unconscious, which he said was his only goal.
The defendant seemed to show the most emotion in the witness box when expressing disgust at Matagi’s friends for not finding him unconscious earlier. If it had been him with his friends in an unfamiliar bar, he said, he would have made a point of checking in on the others every five to 10 minutes to make sure there was no trouble.
“That’s just standard. That’s just normal,” he said. “Where’s the bros?”
Salt is expected to conclude his testimony this morning when the trial resumes before Justice Michael Robinson and the jury.