Woody’s Mysterious Death: Silence from Witnesses

Evander “Woody” Tuala was fatally struck after leaving a nightclub in inner Sydney in April 2022.

Five men were convicted of affray after fighting with Tuala’s friends on the street but no one has been charged over the 23-year-old’s death, his inquest was told this week.

Two of the convicted men – Joel Tutt and Brayden Holten – told the inquest the quintet never saw or asked each other who landed the blow that knocked Tuala unconscious.

Tuala died from brain injuries after falling and hitting his head on the footpath of Oxford Street in Darlinghurst.

Two groups of men started fighting at the Oxford Hotel on April 9, 2022, before they left the venue about 12.30am.

The groups interacted a second time in nearby Taylor Square minutes later, with footage capturing Tuala collapsing after being struck.

Tutt recalled leaving the Oxford Hotel and spotting a friend being surrounded by a group of men, adding what occurred from there was “all a bit of a blur”.

“They were all throwing punches and I done (sic) what I thought was right and helped my friend out,” he told the court.

“I got hit by one of the 10 people surrounding him … I hit him back.”

Tutt said he and the four other men convicted of affray, who are his childhood friends, had never discussed who punched Tuala, even after he died.

“I asked them if they had seen what was on the news and stuff, but I never asked them about details,” he said.

“I didn’t really want to talk about it.”

In farcical scenes, Tutt appeared unable to recognise long-term friend Keidan Donovan-Phillips when shown CCTV footage clearly depicting him.

Donovan-Phillips and another member of the quintet, Byron Brown-Yeo, later declined to give evidence to the inquest, citing a risk of self-incrimination.

Their friend Brayden Holten earlier told the inquest he had a “gut feeling” his mates were involved in the inner-Sydney scrap when he sprinted to join the fracas.

But Holten said he did not see who threw the fatal punch despite being metres from the incident.

Holten recalled a “push-and-shove” inside the venue before he and his friends were kicked out, and was shown video of him sprinting on the road and rounding a lamp post to join the fray when he heard the skirmish taking place outside.

“There was just a bunch of people yelling … I had a gut feeling it was my mates,” he told the court.

But his memory of the night was sketchy and he was unable to recall several key details in the lead-up to the death.

Video showing Tuala being punched and knocked down before being kicked while on the ground was played in court, drawing audible sobs from a distraught family member.

Holten denied being the person who kicked Tuala or that he saw who did.

He was shown footage of him tying his shirt around his face and said part of his reasoning to do so was “to look intimidating”.

“I was being a drunk idiot that night, wasn’t I?”

A CT scan soon after Tuala arrived at St Vincent’s Hospital showed a number of fractures and a brain haemorrhage.

He had surgery that day but was later declared brain dead, with his life support turned off.