Mother sees daughter running, ‘covered in blood’

A man accused of inflicting four years of domestic violence on his partner says he only hit her because she was going to stab him, after they had argued about him getting another woman pregnant.

But the punched woman’s mother says her daughter regularly had black eyes.

Leon Hakaraia, 37, is on trial in the Palmerston North District Court on six charges relating to attacks he allegedly inflicted on his partner of four years.

He is accused of using scissors, a car stereo and his own fists to inflict various injuries on the woman.

He had faced one charge of assault using knives against the woman, but Judge Lance Rowe discharged him on Tuesday afternoon.

The woman’s mother told the court on Tuesday she did not spend much time with Hakaraia, but she knew his relationship with her daughter was violent.

‘‘She would regularly wear sunglasses when she had black eyes.’’

Her daughter also suffered from a limp arm for as long as a year, but the pair did not talk about how that on any of the injuries happened.

‘‘I just didn’t want to get into it,’’ the mother said.

On January 27, 2016, her daughter went with Hakaraia to a house in Feilding, but did not return that day. Phone calls and Facebook messages went unanswered, but she did get a message from Hakaraia’s phone.

In it, her daughter asked to be picked up from Feilding and to not reply to the message – something she took as her daughter being in trouble.

The mother drove to Feilding, parked outside the house and waited.

She then saw her daughter run out of the house ‘‘covered in blood’’ and took her to Palmerston North Hospital.

Hakaraia, giving evidence in his defence, said the complainant had been arguing with him on the days before January 27 about a woman he got pregnant while they were on a break.

‘‘It deeply hurt her, and she is a strong girl, but it got to her emotionally.’’

Hakaraia coped by smoking methamphetamine. They were in the lounge of the Feilding house on January 27, the woman still arguing, when Hakaraia got up to leave. He was in the hallway when ‘‘she just had enough of the whole situation’’ and went at him with a pair of scissors, which he countered by deflecting the scissors and punching her twice in the face.

He did not deny hitting her at another times, saying they argued lots and he could not remember some days during that timeframe. The trial continues.