Four-year nightmare alleged against ex-partner

A Manawatu woman who says she was beaten, strangled and stabbed by her partner during their fouryear relationship, has described feeling like she was going to die during their final day together.

She was left with two black eyes, a wound to her thigh and a badly broken nose after the attack Leon Hakaraia allegedly inflicted.

Hakaraia, 37, is on trial in the Palmerston North District Court on a range of charges related to assaults carried out on his expartner between June 2012 and January 2016.

Knives, a pair of scissors and a car stereo are among the weapons Hakaraia is accused of using.

The complainant said the relationship started off well, but soon became marked by violence on Hakaraia’s part.

He would get angry for no apparent reason before hitting her.

‘‘I would get his anger,’’ she said. ‘‘It was like I was a man and he was hitting another man.’’

He also stabbed her with a pen and other items, once getting her in the back of the head, and threw a car stereo at her.

‘‘He didn’t want me to leave. I ran for the door to go and he picked up the stereo and threw it at my arm.’’

Her arm bled for two days afterwards.

He once dislocated her jaw by punching her in the face, and prevented her from getting treatment at Palmerston North Hospital by putting her on a ferry to Nelson, she said.

The most serious assault happened in January, when Hakaraia took her to a house in Feilding.

She missed an appointment in Palmerston North the next day because he would not let her leave.

As he slept, she used his phone to text her mother, asking to be picked up. But he woke up, got angry when her mother turned up and attacked her, she said.

She was punched in the face and stomach, kicked, stabbed in the leg with a pair of scissors, strangled and felt like she would die.

‘‘He said, ‘if you wanna leave, you can leave in a body bag’.’’

She managed to run out the front door and leave. Photos show her with two black eyes, a broken nose, bruises on her body and blood on her clothes.

Defence lawyer Penelope Walker suggested the assaults before January did not happen, and that Hakaraia only punched her once in the face in self-defence in January because she was going to stab him with the scissors.

They had been arguing because Hakaraia had got another girl pregnant, and she was high on marijuana, Walker said. The complainant denied starting any violence.