The now 14-year-old is on trial before the High Court at Dunedin for the murder of Enere Taana-McLaren following an incident on May 23 last year.
Today the jury heard the defendant’s version of events for the first time through his police interview, filmed just three hours after the episode.
Before the formal sit-down, the teen told Detective Shelley Dodds: "I didn’t mean to stab the guy . . . I didn’t want this to happen. I just wanted to find my mates".
Accompanied by his counsel Anne Stevens KC and his parents, the defendant described getting off the bus, planning to transfer and visit a friend in Macandrew Bay.
He said as he passed Enere, the Trinity College student told him to pull down his socks and called him "b.... boy".
"He was taller than me and, like, I was afraid of him, right. I’ve been bullied before and I’ve been assaulted before. That’s why I had a weapon on me today. I didn’t have any intentions of using it on anyone," the defendant told police.
"I put my hand in the bag on the handle of the knife . . . my intention was to pull it out, wave it around and do something, probably make him scared or something."
But he said Enere encouraged him to withdraw the weapon.
"When he kicked me in the head that’s the time I swung my hand and the knife went into him," he said.
The defendant said the blade entered the victim partially before he dropped it on the street.
Det Dodds asked him how regularly he would carry a knife.
"Pretty often," the teenager replied.
"It kind of gives me the sense of protection."
He told police his intention was to scare Enere rather than harm him.
Det Dodds asked him what was going through his head at the critical time of the stabbing.
"It wasn’t one thing. There was heaps of stuff going on," the defendant said.
It was not possible to walk away, he said, because Enere was "kind of in my face, basically".
Before the interview concluded Det Dodds asked the teen if he understood whether stabbing someone was wrong.
He said he did - "because someone could potentially die from those injuries".
It was only minutes after cameras were turned off that police relayed the news that Enere had died and advised the boy he would be charged with murder.
Det Dodds agreed, under cross-examination, the defendant was "extremely distressed" and reacted by pulling his hoodie over his head.
Later that evening, the defendant was assessed by Dr Nina Molteno and reported feelings of nausea after finding out about the victim’s death.
He worried he would not be able to sleep and "appeared sad", the doctor said.
Dr Molteno identified tenderness to the defendant’s head which was consistent with him being kicked, as well as a black eye which seemed to have been sustained days earlier.
The teen told her he had twice overdosed at the age of 11 and had spent time in a psychiatric clinic.
He had previously been prescribed Ritalin (commonly used to treat ADHD) but had not used medication for about a year.
The pathologist who examined Enere is scheduled to give evidence this afternoon.
