Man charged with manslaughter after death of MMA fighter Fau Vake jailed for two years & 9 months
Cover image photos courtesy of Willie Vake.
via RNZ
Update: The man who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of rising MMA fighter Fau Vake in a late night attack in Auckland last year has been sentenced to two years, nine months in jail.
Liufau Vake, 25, known as Fau, died after an attack by a group of four men outside a bar on Symonds Street, just before 3am on 16 May 2021.
After a series of other punches from others, Fau was punched by Daniel Havili in the side of the head while he had his hands by his side. Vake was unable to break his fall and his head hit the asphalt road.
The fall caused a skull fracture and brain bleeding, which, despite surgery, could not be recovered from. Vake died in hospital nine days later.
Fau's brother Ika was also attacked, including by Havili. Ika was hospitalised but survived.
Of the four men charged, Daniel Havili, 30, was the only one charged with manslaughter.
Two others have pleaded guilty to assault. Ofa He Mooni Folau was last year sentenced to six months' home detention and Siofilisi Paongo is yet to be sentenced. Another man denies the assault charges against him.
Havili initially denied the charge but pleaded guilty to killing Vake via manslaughter.
Havili also held Fau Vake back while Ofa Folau assaulted him, and assaulted Ika Vake.
In the High Court at Auckland today, Crown Prosecutor Claire Paterson said Havili's actions were "senseless acts of violence" against a man who never once punched or attacked any members of the group of four men.
City Kickboxing issued an official statement on the sentencing via Authority PR here
Click here for the full court sentencing story via RNZ. This is an update to the story below which ran in May last year.
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A young Tongan fighter who was left critically injured after he was punched from behind in central Auckland last weekend has died this morning.
Twenty-five-year-old Liufau Tu'iha'angana Vake, known as Fau Vake, was left in a coma after being punched from behind in Symonds Street during the early hours of last Sunday morning.
A statement from City Kickboxing - where Vake trained with UFC champion Israel Adesanya - confirmed that Vake had died this morning.
Four people have been charged by the police over the incident and have already appeared in the Auckland District Court. Further charges are likely.
Police said they are not seeking anyone else in relation to the investigation, but would still like to hear from anyone that witnessed the incident on Symonds Street on 16 May at about 2.55am.
Vake is one of the main training partners of Adesanya, who is leading the call for tougher laws for such attacks.
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Combat sports commentator Mike Angove, who is also a coach at the gym, spoke this morning for Fau Vake's family.
"It's been an incredibly long week, he's fought the entire distance, he's such a fighter that he was and then finally his heart, which made him such a special fighter, has given out and we are just incredibly sad."
"There aren't words to describe how we feel. It's not really how I feel, how his family feels, how his brother feels, how his orphaned daughter feels. There are no words that can describe that other than inexplicable sadness and a real sense of loss," he said.
Angove said Vake was not only a talented and inspiring fighter, but also someone who always gave to his family and gym.
"In fact, we had him earmarked for great things for the future, but he was more than that. He was a father. He was someone who is always smiling around the gym. He was someone who would turn up and do a job as a sparky for someone and not charge them or take them a for a training session and not charge them," he said.
"He was someone who would always give whether it's to his gym family or to his own family, to his mum, so that's the man we remember beyond just a simple media label that can get slapped on that he's an MMA fighter. People aren't one-dimensional characters and he was a multifaceted character who had so much to offer."
Earlier, Vake's uncle-in-law Veili Pāongo said his nephew was "a rising star" in his boxing field, and members of the UFC Tongan mixed martial art fight community were at his side in the hospital, including coach Lolo Heimuli.
City Kickboxing gym co-owner Eugene Bareman has renewed calls for tougher coward punch laws. In Australia, king-hit attacks have led to tougher laws, which were introduced in 2014.
In New Zealand, a National Party members bill - The Crimes (Coward Punch Causing Death) Amendment Bill, which had its first reading last year, was voted down by the Labour-led coalition government.
The bill came about after a number of incidents where victims had died after being blind-sided with a 'coward's punch'. The bill would have created a new offence that would allow for a specific king-hit-type offence where the victim died of injuries following the assault. Those convicted would have received a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment.
"We can't fathom why a bill in 2018 didn't pass the first reading, basically bringing our laws in line with the ones currently operating in Australia," Eugene said.
"This needs to be revisited because there's many cases documented of this happening and it keeps reoccurring... There needs to be harsher penalties to match the harshness of the crime."
That's not going to change, with Justice Minister Kris Faafoi saying: "We believe current law gives courts appropriate options, and allows for such acts to be appropriately prosecuted and punished."
Bareman is baffled by the approach.
"From where we're sitting, we can't understand where the opposition to a law like that came from," he questions.
Click here to sign the petition for harsher 'Coward Punch' laws in New Zealand
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A 'Give A Little' page - 'Stand with the Vake Family' has also been created to help Fau's grieving family to alleviate some of the financial pressures at this unfathomably difficult time.
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Many from the MMA community have reacted to the sad news via social media
