Zayne Taki: Central Coast teenager faces hearing over Wollongong street brawl

A Central Coast teenager in the “strange city” of Wollongong said the “adrenaline pumping through my body” caused him to stomp on a man and deliver a barrage of blows to two women in the CBD.

Woongarrah man Zayne Taki leaving Wollongong Local Court on Monday. Picture: Dylan Arvela

A Central Coast teenager in the “strange city” of Wollongong said the “adrenaline pumping through my body” caused him to stomp on a man and deliver a barrage of blows to two women in the CBD.

Footage of the shocking street brawl was shown in court during the hearing of Zayne Taki in Wollongong Local Court on Monday, where the 19-year-old claimed he was acting in self defence.

The Woongarrah man previously pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company, common assault and affray.

The court heard the violent fracas took place about 1am on March 12 last year, near the intersection of Crown and Atchison streets in Wollongong.

The court heard prior to the moments captured on CCTV, the man Taki attacked had wrapped his hand around the then 18-year-old’s face.

“I acted in self defence as I was threatened (and feared) for mine and my friend’s safety,” the male complainant told the court.

Two women who had been at the Heyday nightclub saw the incident unfold from a nearby kebab shop before they tried to break up the melee, the court heard.

The brawl occurred near the intersection of Crown and Atchison streets in Wollongong. Picture: Google Maps

“I saw (the male complainant) getting his head kicked in,” one of the women said.

“He was on the floor and he was getting beaten … (I went over and) said ‘this isn’t necessary’ or something along those lines.”

The second woman told the court she said “This isn’t on” before she “got hit to the concrete and it was blank from there”.

She told the court she went to hospital with a fractured nose, three facial cuts, a black eye and a cut inside her lip which left her with no feeling.

The first woman was then punched six times before falling to the floor as Taki left the scene in a car parked across the road.

The woman said she was left “unresponsive”, but recalled Taki calling her a “filthy lesbian w****”.

She told the court she “struggled to breathe from there being so much blood” in her nose and mouth, while she also sustained a cut on the head and a broken tooth.

When he gave evidence, Taki said he had been out with four or five friends – who were seen in the CCTV footage.

Zayne Taki told the court he was acting in self defence. Picture: Dylan Arvela

He said the male complainant had hit him “not very hard” before he laid more than a dozen punches and kicks on him in self defence to prevent him from obtaining “a knife or a bat or something”.

Police prosecutor asked why Taki thought the man was going to get a weapon given he had not indicated he would.

“Heat of the moment,” Taki said.

“Fear kicked into my body … tunnel vision kicked in.”

Taki said the women had “attacked” him on five occasions including “waving a hand at my face trying to smack me” and “raising arms rushing me for no reason”.

He said he punched one of the women half a dozen times because she was holding on to his gold necklace which his grandfather had bequeathed him.

When asked why he did not walk away from the situation, Taki said it was a case of “fight or flight”.

“The amount of adrenaline pumping through my body, I thought it was necessary to defend myself,” Taki told the court.

The hearing before Magistrate Les Mabbutt was adjourned until February for closing submissions.

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