A youth leader who was allegedly stabbed in the back by Manly hooker Manase Fainu has recalled yelling ‘I’m injured,’ while feeling indescribable pain before blacking out.
Fainu, 24, has pleaded not guilty in the Parramatta District Court to wounding Faamanu Levi with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Wattle Grove on October 25, 2019.
The witness known as Levi to friends and family gave evidence on Wednesday about a fight that erupted on the dancefloor of a charity event organised by the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
He remembers the DJ paused the music and turned on the lights saying ‘stop fighting, go home, go outside,’ while two men were punching.
NRL player Manase Fainu (pictured) faced Parramatta District Court and pleaded not guilty to stabbing a youth leader
Mr Levi approached and said: ‘It’s time to go home, not a good place, not a good time, this is a church activity.’
‘F*** you,’ a man in a black T-shirt responded, he recalled.
Eventually, the men were ushered outside to the gate and one of them yelled out ‘c’mon see what you want’.
‘How were you feeling?’ crown prosecutor Emma Curran said.
‘I was scared. Honestly, I never experienced this kind of thing in my entire life,’ Mr Levi said.
Not long after he gathered his friends to go home, a tired Mr Levi sat in the back seat of his white Honda Civic and closed his eyes.
‘All I hear was a scream and a fight happening outside,’ he said.
He said the melee involving another group of males pushed up against the car door where his friend’s leg was jammed.
‘Charlie is having a fight with someone and my leg is stuck in the door,’ he recounted her saying.
Mr Levi said he jumped out to protect the woman who was stuck and saw two of his friends on the floor, covering their faces from kicking and punching.
After managing to close the door Mr Levi ‘felt the stab on my back,’ to his lower right shoulder, he said.
‘I said ‘stop fighting, I’m injured’.
‘I was in pain that I can’t explain.’
An off-duty nurse treated him before he was taken to hospital suffering from internal bleeding and a collapsed lung.
‘Did you see who stabbed you?’ Ms Curran asked.
‘No,’ he replied.
Faamanu Levi was breaking up a brawl outside a church in Wattle Grove on October 25, 2019, when he was allegedly stabbed by Fainu (pictured)
Charlie Toilalo told the jury he observed an altercation on the dancefloor before he sat men down in a separate room, repeating the message that fighting was prohibited on church grounds.
Later he escorted his female friends out to Mr Levi’s car to say goodbye when the group of recently ejected men approached, accompanied by a man in a sling.
The Crown said Fainu had recently undergone shoulder surgery and had his arm in a sling that evening.
One of the men Mr Toilalo had questioned inside the dance hall said ‘let’s go let’s go … he then punched me in the left eye,’ he said.
Mr Toilalo later came to know this man as Uona Faingaa, known as ‘Big Buck,’ who then pulled out an extendable baton to hit him across the head, he said.
But the violent brawl was interrupted when he heard his brother Kupi yell ‘knife knife,’ he then heard that ‘Levi’s been stabbed’.
‘I held onto Levi, he didn’t realise he was stabbed, I was just trying to find where he was stabbed.’
At that point Big Buck and the man in the cast ran away, he said.
The trial continues.
