Judge seeks stronger sentencing on family-related assaults
Tuesday, 2 May 2023
A Timaru man who assaulted a woman and two children numerous times will have to wait a month for sentencing after the judge rejected the pre-sentence report.
The 42-year-old, who has continued interim suppression of name, was to be sentenced on nine charges of assaulting a child (manually), a further nine charges of assault on a person in a family relationship and one charge of assault with a weapon when he appeared in the Timaru District Court on Monday.
However Judge David Sharp, who had found the man guilty at an earlier trial in Timaru, refused to follow the pre-sentence report which recommended community work and supervision.
The man’s lawyer Grant Fletcher had agreed with the report, but Judge Sharp said “I don't see that as sufficient”.
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“I am going to convene sentencing to another date for an electronically-monitored sentence to be available.
“I want to do most of the sentencing today and allow the victims to understand how I reached the end point.”
Judge Sharp said there was a need for something greater than what was in the report.
Before reaching that decision, one of the victims, a 44-year-old woman said in a Victim Impact Statement (VIS) read to the court by Crown Prosecutor Nadine Girgis, that she had suffered significant bruising to her wrist, back, hip and knees and was dragged and kicked during the long term abuse.
She developed severe anxiety and a severe skin disorder “with a constant reminder from scars on my face and a reminder when I look in the mirror”.
“The name-calling made me hate myself and think I was worthless. I was unable to work for two years.”
She has undergone extensive counselling and psychotherapy, developed OCD and suffered nightmares and panic attacks “for a very long time”.
“I am much less trusting… I go to the shop only if necessary. I only feel safe at home.”
She had wanted to move back to her home town but stayed in the house, being too scared to move.
“Eleven years we were together, and I began cutting myself to take away the pain of what he had done.
“He has damaged me and my kids’ lives … our lives will never be the same.”
The VIS from the second victim, a 16-year-old boy, also recounted struggles to leave the house, a fear of meeting the defendant, and that he would hurt him.
“The last time I saw him he came onto the property and was threatening Mum and Gran.”
His anxiety had got significantly worse and even going to the supermarket was too public.
He also had a lot of time off school, again through a fear of running into him and there were nightmares of “him killing Mum and Gran”.
“I can’t trust anyone … I'm always looking over my shoulder.
“Someone who has done that to a person deserves to pay for it.”
The third victim was a 13-year-old boy and his VIS said he had changed as a person with the incidents “making me an angry person” and lead to him getting into fights and missing school.
“I developed a bad attitude towards teachers … it affected by mental health and I distanced myself from friends.
“I've had counselling. It has been a very hard time for me. I'm now trying to be a better person and trying to do better at school.”
The man’s lawyer Grant Fletcher said he believed the incidents didn't define his client as a person.
Fletcher said it was an amplified situation of a dying relationship brought to the surface by significant financial pressures and not helped by the man being “blinded by the poison that is methamphetamine”.
“The situation was a response to a time of an extraordinarily difficult time. It was the totally wrong way to deal with it.”
Fletcher said his client had done two or three sessions of the Stopping Violence programme, and he understood it had gone well.
Judge Sharp said interim name suppression would continue even though the woman was opposed to it continuing and the boys were neutral on the subject.
“I don't want anything to happen in a small community to the victims … which is a likely outcome.”
Judge Sharp said permanent name suppression to protect the victims was the “likely outcome”.
The man’s sentencing will now be June 6.