Toutai Kefu interview: I struggle with reduced sentences for teenagers who stabbed me

Telegraph

22-07-2025

Toutai Kefu tries to rely upon his Christian belief in the power of forgiveness, but the head coach of the First Nations and Pasifika team has found turning the other cheek a challenging process in recent weeks.
On the night of August 16, 2021, Kefu was fast asleep when two teenagers broke into his Brisbane home bearing knives and machetes. What followed was like a scene from a horror film.
In the ensuing struggle, Kefu was stabbed multiple times and was left with a 25mm wound in his liver, which at one stage was considered life threatening. His son Josh had a lump of flesh cut from his back which would require 40 stitches and his daughter, Madison, was also cut trying to escape. The worst wounds were suffered by Kefu's wife, Rachel, who first encountered the intruders and almost had her arm severed by a sickle-like machete, which has left her with permanent nerve damage. The judge in the original sentencing case said the subsequent police photographs of inside the Kefu home 'frankly looks like a war zone'.
Last year, the boys in the case were originally charged with attempted murder but accepted plea deals of eight and seven years respectively. The attorney general in Queensland appealed against the leniency of those sentences, but remarkably they were instead reduced last month. One boy has already been freed and the other will be out in a matter of weeks. Neither will have their convictions recorded.
'You struggle to get your head around it,' Kefu tells Telegraph Sport over a coffee in Brisbane. 'The attorney general wanted their records to be made permanent and their sentences to be extended. That didn't happen. Their sentences got reduced. That's disappointing. I don't know what more to say. My wife is probably the most disappointed, but we are trying to move on.
'We've gotten through it. With my upbringing and my kids' sporting background, they are resilient. A tough group. Probably that Polynesian upbringing meant they bounced back pretty quickly. My wife is still affected by it, but is doing really well. She can't fully bend her hand. The finer movements she struggles with, particularly when it gets colder. She struggles to sleep at night. If she hears anything on the street, she fully wakes up. We are fully secure now with lights, alarm, a dog.'
The Kefus live in a prosperous neighbourhood but even with their extra security measures they have suffered two further break-ins. 'We have had a couple more break-ins where people try to steal our cars,' Kefu said. 'One night my wife woke up hearing something out the front and somehow they had got through the alarm and the front gate. My wife shouted at them and they ran off. As much as it affected us and still does, a lot of blame needs to go on the shoulders of the parents and the social environment. It has been happening consistently in our neighbourhood. They are kids from out of town. They're usually on something or other so it can be really dangerous. We're fortunate. Other people in the area have had it a lot worse. There have been deaths and fatalities. We're grateful we are all here.'
You would think the Kefu household would be marked as off limits for potential thieves. As a back-rower of Tongan stock, Kefu rarely took a backwards step in his 60 appearances for the Wallabies. These were spread over the golden era of Australian rugby, making his debut in the 76-0 demolition of England in 1998 and going on to be a part of the World Cup-winning back row the following year.