A Hastings-based Samoan chief on trial for human trafficking and slavery has denied tying up a teenage girl and locking her in a room after an escape attempt.
Joseph Auga Matamata, aka Viliamu Samu, in court. Photo: RNZ/ Anusha Bradley
She is one of 13 people the Crown says 65-year-old Joseph Matamata trafficked to New Zealand and used as a slave between 1994 and 2017.
The Crown claimed he tracked the girl down in Auckland and tied her wrists and ankles with rope for the car drive back to Hastings.
As the Defence opened its case at the end of the fourth week, Matamata told the High Court in Napier he never did that.
He said he went to Auckland to find her about a month after she had disappeared. When he arrived at the house where she was staying, two of his nephews went in to get her and bring her to the car, he said.
"She just jumped in. She was shocking [sic]...she didn't know she was going to get caught," he said.
"There was no rope or anything."
The 15-year-old, who has name suppression, earlier told the court she had come to New Zealand for schooling but was instead made to look after Matamata's children and cook and clean.
Today, Matamata said the girl came for a holiday and helped in the house like everyone in the family did. He claimed the girl left his three-year-old son with bruising while looking after him one day and that night she ran away.
Over the past four weeks the jury has heard from all 13 complainants who said they were explicitly told by Matamata that they were never to leave his house without his permission, and often had to remain behind a locked nine-foot perimeter fence that surrounded his property.
Matamata denied that was the case, saying he only warned them to be careful when they did go out because the area where he lived - in Camberley, Hastings - was dangerous.
"If they come and live with me that's my responsibility to look after them. I don't demand them like a slave."
The accused described arriving in New Zealand in 1976 for a better life but still having to perform his chiefly duties in Samoa.
His relatives in Samoa thought he was a "rich man" and were always asking for money, he said.
"I'm a high chief, they're thinking I'm a rich man coming from New Zealand ... but I'm not, I'm just a poor man."
His lawyer Roger Philip told the jury the case could not be understood without examining the Samoan "concepts of duty, honour, service and family" and especially the role of Matai, or chief, which Matamata held.
"A role of service to the family, a provider, a judge over family disputes, a father over extended family which extends beyond blood lines. His or her responsibility is to weigh all the individuals' welfare with the common good and the common need."
He urged the jury "to keep an open mind" until the end of the case.
Family members and a Bishop from Matamata's church in Flaxmere will also be called to give evidence during the next week, Philip said.