Lawyers for murder co-defendant Sean Hayde acknowledged to jurors today that he had gotten into a physical altercation with his boxing tutor, Wiremu Arapo, on the evening of Arapo’s death.

But it consisted of an ultimately harmless shoving and wrestling bout on the floor of Arparo’s Cockle Bay home, Julie-Anne Kincade KC contended as she divulged details of her client’s version of events for the first time. She placed blame for the October 2020 homicide squarely on the shoulders of her client’s former best friend, co-defendant Gregory Hart.

“Mr Hart stomped on Mr Wiremu Arapo’s head,” the defence lawyer told jurors in the High Court at Auckland as week three of the murder trial began with her opening address. “Mr Hart also stabbed Wiremu Arapo once in the back of the neck.

“It was Mr Hart who killed Mr Wiremu Arapo. It was his actions that killed him.”

Hart and Hayde, who had been friends since high school, were arrested five weeks after Arapo’s body was found inside his East Auckland home as firefighters responded to a large blaze inside.

Prosecutors contend both men had reason to be angry at Arapo and both men share responsibility for the homicide, as well as responsibility for setting fire the house in an effort to destroy evidence. They both pretended to attempt to battle their way back into the burning home as a charade for witnesses, the Crown alleges.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to murder but have acknowledged through their lawyers that foul play occurred. However, it was the other defendant’s fault, both men allege.

During her opening address today, Kincade noted that “tensions had been building” between Arapo and Hart, his roommate, for some time prior to the confrontation. Her client was not a part of that, she said.

Sean Hayde stands trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of having helped murder Wiremu Arapo in his Cockle Bay home in October 2020. Photo / Jason Oxenham.

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“There had been tension building about Mr Hart’s failure to pay his rent, his failure to pull his weight, his failure to look after his child ... so much so that Mr Arapo had taken steps to find a new flatmate to replace Gregory Hart,” she said.

When the co-defendants arrived at the house shared by Hart and Arapo at around 6pm on the night of his death, “tensions spilled over and an argument occurred”, Kincade said.

“Things escalated quickly,” she said, explaining that her client stepped in and ended up on the ground with Arapo, tussling harmlessly before his friend delivered the head stomp.

“Mr Hayde acknowledges that he didn’t talk to police at the house because Greg was his best friend,” she said.

But prosecutor Ned Fletcher said at the outset of the trial that the lingering tension hadn’t been just between Hart and Arapo. He described the alleged murder as the crescendo of a tangled web of resentments and infidelities.

“This is a case about relationships, relationships gone wrong, and their snowballing effects,” Fletcher said.

Hayde took issue with Arapo’s criticism of his childhood friend, but he also resented his boxing tutor’s continuing closeness with his new partner, authorities allege.

In addition to the murder and perverting the course of justice charges, Hayde is charged with assaulting, strangling and threatening to kill another woman partner five weeks earlier - characterised by prosecutors as a prelude to the more extreme violence that was to follow.

The alleged victim had been his live-in partner but the two had been going through a breakup in August that year after Hayde started dating Arapo’s friend.

Hayde’s lawyer said today that the alleged attack on the woman “simply didn’t happen”. There was one point when he restained her in order to stop her from hurting herself with a steak knife and another time when he poured hot sauce in her hair after she spat on him, but he never inflicted physical violence on her, Kincade said.

“The relationship ... was, if not completely over, certainly at an end, but [she] was not accepting of that reality,” Kincade said. “She was devastated by that. She was angry and upset.

“She was desperate to get the attention of him. She was trying different things in order to do that...

“She was certainly not afraid of Sean Hayde. She was just upset about the demise of the relationship.”

Gregory Hart in the dock alongside his murder co-accused Sean Hayde. Photo / Jason Oxenham

After the opening statement, Hayde took the witness stand and began describing the relationship as having been toxic from almost the moment they moved in together. He acknowledged starting a new relationship with Arapo’s friend while still living with the woman, which he said resulted in more anger and jealousy.

The two mutually ended the relationship one night after she saw a message from the other woman pop up on his phone, he said.

“Following that, she asked if we could rekindle things. I declined this,” he said. “I felt we didn’t work as a couple.”

If anyone was the aggressor it was her, he testified, describing an incident after the break-up in which he asked her to hand an outdoor table off the deck to him below so he could power-wash it. She ended up throwing the table at him, he claimed.

“She just picked up the table and threw it at me,” he said. “I can’t remember exactly what she said. She said I was an asshole or a dickhead or something like that.”

Hayde’s testimony is expected to remain in the witness box this afternoon as the trial continues before Justice Geoffrey Venning and the jury.

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.