Three years’ jail for man who choked wife

One of the first people in New Zealand sentenced under the new antistrangulation law, designed to impose harsher penalties on domestic violence perpetrators, has been jailed for nearly three years.

While Jamie Robert Ackland choked his wife of seven years unconscious, he let her know the power he was exerting.

‘‘If you want, I can end it for you all now,’’ he told her. He was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday to two years and nine months’ jail for strangulation, assault, and assaulting his neighbour with a knife.

Stuff understands Ackland is one of the first people to be sentenced for strangulation in New Zealand, and Judge Stephanie Edwards said he was the first to be sentenced for it in Palmerston North.

The charge, which has only been available to police since December, was created because choking in domestic violence situations had usually only led to assault charges, the judge said.

Male assaults female carries a maximum sentence of two years’ jail, while strangulation has a seven-year maximum.

Defence lawyer Jacinda Younger said Ackland did not remember much about what happened on the evening of January 3, due to being on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.

He, his wife and their five young children were all home that night.

He slapped her across the face multiple times after asking her to keep her voice down, so police would not be called.

She sat down on a nearby chair to recover, but Ackland followed and put his hands around her throat and made the threat.

She gagged for breath, before her body tingled and she lost consciousness.

She left the house when she regained consciousness, but Ackland followed her outside and the argument continued.

A neighbour tried to intervene, but Ackland reacted by putting a knife to the good samaritan’s throat.

The neighbour suffered a cut on his neck and Ackland returned indoors. Police arrived soon after.

The judge referenced Ackland’s wife’s victim impact statement, in which she said she suffered bruising and pain.

She had ‘‘lived like this for too long’’ and feared Ackland getting out of jail.

The neighbour did not need medical attention, but his wife and daughter wanted to move out of the neighbourhood after the incident.

He wanted Ackland to get counselling.

The judge said the threat was especially serious.

‘‘You have left her with the impression that you held the power of life and death over her at that moment.’’

The assault of the neighbour was also serious, as putting a knife to someone’s throat had the potential to cause serious injury or death, the judge said.

Ackland had used drugs regularly since he was 13, and told a presentence report writer he had been using methamphetamine and methadone leading up to the assaults.

He said friends on the methadone programme gave him that drug, but he used family money to pay for methamphetamine, and was using because he was concerned about the health of one of his children.

The judge said he needed to sort his drug problems.

‘‘It’s not going to be a quick fix.’’