• A teen has been granted permanent name suppression for a fatal stabbing in 2023 at the Albany bus station on Auckland’s North Shore.
• Now 18, he was 16 when he got into a fight with stranger Epapara Poutapu.
• He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for manslaughter after jurors declined to find him guilty of murder.

A convicted killer who was 16 when he stabbed a stranger to death in front of a crowd of bystanders at Auckland’s Albany bus station has been granted permanent name suppression – in part due to trauma he suffered from a “prison napalm” attack at a youth justice facility that left him partially blind.

The defendant, now 18, was also sentenced today to three years' imprisonment, with Justice Graham Lang noting that he should already be eligible to begin applying for parole given his time in custody awaiting trial.

“I am satisfied that you are in a particularly vulnerable position by virtue of the issues that you have faced to date,” the judge said of the permanent name suppression decision, adding also that the teen’s transfer to an adult prison would “likely pose very real risks for you”.

While the judge said he had “no power to direct how the prison authorities deal with you”, he expressed hope the teen would continue to be held in a youth justice facility until prison officials read Justice Lang’s remarks and reports submitted to the court.

“This will enable them to make an informed and considered decision as to how you should be housed if the decision is made to transfer you to an adult prison,” he explained.

Murder acquittal, manslaughter conviction

Jurors in the High Court at Auckland had been asked in November to find the teen guilty of murder. After three days of deliberations, they instead settled on manslaughter.

Both charges are punishable by a sentence of up to life imprisonment, but such a sentence is automatic in the vast majority of murder cases and rarely if ever imposed for manslaughter.

The defendant admitted to the stabbing but insisted he didn’t realise he had the knife in his hand during the fight with stranger Epapara Poutapu.

Epapara Poutapu was stabbed to death at the Albany bus station in September 2023. Photo / Supplied

The teen said he lashed out without time to think about the consequences, adding over and over again while in the witness box: “It just happened.”

Poutapu, 24, bled to death on the afternoon of September 18, 2023, after the kitchen paring knife wielded by the teen defendant severed two major arteries in his neck. The weapon had been used with such force that the tip of the blade broke off and lodged in Poutapu’s vertebrae, resulting in a bloody scene that left commuters shocked and traumatised.

The teen ran from the station immediately after the fatal blow was inflicted and borrowed a stranger’s phone to call his mother, who took him to her home in Hamilton. Along the way, he threw the knife out of the car window into Lake Pupuke near North Shore Hospital.

The knife used to kill Epapara Poutapu, 24, at an Albany bus station in September 2023 was entered into evidence in the High Court at Auckland during the trial of a then-16-year-old who inflicted the fatal blow. The teen, whose name is suppressed, said he was acting in self-defence. Photo / Craig Kapitan

Jurors were told a man matching Poutapu’s description had been acting intimidatingly towards two other teen boys at the bus stop eight days earlier – leaving them alone only after an older woman intervened and told him off. Jurors were also told of Poutapu’s mental health problems, and that he might have been off his schizophrenia medication, experiencing auditory hallucinations and muttering to himself.

Defence lawyer Barbara Hunt argued during the trial that her client didn’t want to fight Poutapu and never intended to stab him. She suggested that Poutapu’s own momentum, due to a high kick he tried to inflict on the teen, likely added to the lethality of the neck wound.

But prosecutor Alysha McClintock described the defendant as someone who was 11kg heavier than Poutapu and was looking to “bait” an unwell man into a fight that he knew would be unfair because he secretly had a knife.

“It was an episode of utterly senseless violence,” she said.

Justice Lang wasn’t so sure.

“I accept that, at the time you first produced the knife and then subsequently struck the fatal blow, you were acting in self-defence,” he said today. “On each occasion, Mr Poutapu was confronting you in an intimidating and aggressive manner. At the time that you inflicted the fatal wound, he was delivering a forceful kick aimed at your upper body or head.

“I consider the jury’s verdict is explicable on the basis that, although they accepted you were acting in self-defence, you used considerably more force than was reasonable given the circumstances as you believed them to be. The fact that the jury acquitted you on the charge of murder also means they accepted that you did not intend to kill Mr Poutapu.”

Justice Graham Lang at an earlier trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig

But he agreed with the Crown that the teen created a situation that need not have ended in tragedy by carrying a knife on him.

“You say that you often carried a knife because of an earlier incident in which you were stabbed when you went to the assistance of another person, who had been injured during a fight that had broken out at a party you were attending,” Justice Lang noted. “You also say that you did not carry the knife with the intention of using it, but rather to scare others from harming you if the situation required.

“This is an explanation the court hears all too often, particularly in the case of young offenders. Young people carry weapons with them for the purpose you describe but then use them as soon as they are confronted with a situation in which they perceive they are in physical danger. As this case demonstrates, all too often this ends in tragedy for all involved.”

‘Justice, accountability’

The courtroom rang out with an emotional waiata after Poutapu’s mother, through tears, described to the defendant her son’s playfulness and the part he played in their family as a middle child.

“We feel like we have an emptiness in us all,” she said. “This is our new reality ...

“You will never know the impact that it has had on us.

“Justice and accountability is all I can ask and pray for. My son did not deserve what happened to him that day.”

In arguing against permanent name suppression, the prosecution noted that Poutapu’s family had to see him named and painted in a poor light at trial while the defendant enjoyed anonymity. Naming the defendant, McClintock said, is “almost required in a way to bring balance to things”.

She suggested the PTSD he suffered as a result of his earlier childhood and things that happened to him while in custody did not rise to the level of extreme hardship – the level needed for a judge to override the principles of open justice.

The defence, however, presented a psychological report suggesting that naming the teen could set back the rehabilitative strides he had made while in custody. His age, while not an automatic guarantee of suppression, adds to his vulnerability and hardship, Hunt added.

She noted that her client had written a letter to the victim’s family expressing his remorse and hoping it would bring them peace to know he strives to be a better person now that he is an adult.

‘Ability to thrive’

It was just two months after Poutapu’s death that the teen became a victim himself while at the embattled Korowai Manaaki facility in Wiri.

Another youth was alleged to have thrown a microwaved cup of water and sugar into the defendant’s face, an attack common enough that it has its own nickname: prison napalm. The mixture sticks to the skin and can cause severe burns, making it more painful and dangerous than hot water alone.

The November 2023 attack resulted in the defendant’s lengthy hospitalisation with injuries to his face and eyes. He had still not recovered full use of one eye, the court was told.

The teen’s lawyer pointed out that the injuries are something he will likely have to deal with for the rest of his life.

Police investigate the fatal stabbing of Epapara Poutapu at the Albany bus station in September 2023. Photo / Dean Purcell

“This is something that has happened while in the custody of the state,” Hunt said. “I think that is something that needs to be taken into account.”

The judge acknowledged that the defendant continues to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the attack.

“I accept that you are likely to find it more difficult than others to serve a prison sentence because of the ongoing effects of your eye injury and other factors related to this,” Justice Lang said.

He said a starting point of seven years' imprisonment would ordinarily be appropriate to reflect the gravity of his offending, but he reduced it to six years “given the fact that you were acting in self-defence and Mr Poutapu was acting in an intimidating and aggressive manner“.

He then allowed a 20% reduction to reflect the fact the teen had expressed an interest in pleading guilty to manslaughter before the trial. The Crown rejected the offer, choosing to push forward with the murder charge.

Police investigate the fatal stabbing of Epapara Poutapu at the Albany bus station in September 2023. Photo / Dean Purcell

He applied 30% in additional reductions to reflect factors such as the teen’s youth, his efforts at rehabilitation and his difficult upbringing.

The judge described a “chaotic family environment” marred by violence in which government agencies were prompted to intervene when he was under 5 years old. He went to six different primary schools but was often suspended because of behavioural issues linked to his traumatic background, it was also noted.

But he has shown real progress while in custody, including earning his Level 2 NCEA qualifications, the judge said.

“Staff members from the facility have provided glowing reports about your progress in this area,” he said. “You obviously have the ability to thrive academically, and this is likely to be instrumental to you gaining employment and leading a productive and pro-social life in the future.

“Importantly, you have also expressed remorse and insight into the effects of your offending from the outset.”

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.