Supervision for assault incident

Convicted cannabis dealer returns to court

SENTENCING a straightA student to community detention for drug dealing last year, a Dunedin judge said he bet the man would not return to court.

It was a hypothetical wager Judge Michael Crosbie would have lost.

Just weeks after 21yearold Joshua Thompson was sentenced at the Dunedin District Court to five months’ community detention and 200 hours’ community work for possessing cannabis for supply, he was arrested over the assault of his girlfriend.

At an earlier hearing last year, Thompson and the victim had been warned about ‘‘pashing’’ in the public gallery.

‘‘You’re in a courtroom, not the back of the movie theatre,’’ Judge Crosbie told them in

August.

But the relationship clearly soured when the defendant started his curfew sentence.

On November 9, the pair were in the bedroom of Thompson’s Castle St flat when he grabbed her phone and refused to give it back.

He demanded the code to unlock it but the victim would not tell him.

‘‘The defendant became enraged at her refusal and began verbally abusing her,’’ a police summary said.

‘‘At some point during the verbal tirade the defendant pushed the victim off the bed causing her to hit her head on a desk next to the bed.’’

Judge Kevin Phillips, at sentencing yesterday, said the incident had only come to police’s attention after Thompson’s girlfriend told a friend.

Since then, the judge said, the pair had been critical of the police’s involvement.

‘‘You have certain attitudes to your life and your entitlement . . . everything is someone else’s fault,’’ he said.

Thompson received a $10,000 scholarship to attend the University of Otago because of his impressive high school grades and was a top rugby player too, representing the region at agegrade level.

Defence counsel Sophia Thorburn said her client was studying several subjects at present and at his previous sentencing the court heard he was averaging an A grade across maths papers.

She said the violent incident was ‘‘low level’’ and came against the background of an anxious period for both parties.

‘‘They were facing exams and very, very stressed . . . and their relationship had been strained for quite some time due to infidelity issues,’’ Ms Thorburn said.

Thompson had suffered a head injury in a car crash in 2015 and she said that might explain his attitude to the police and court process.

Judge Phillips was sceptical the truth of the incident in the bedroom had been unravelled but said the black mark might have dire consequences for the defendant’s future.

‘‘I’m just concerned here the conviction now entered against you may have a serious effect on your ability to enter the teaching profession,’’ he said.

Thompson was sentenced to six months’ supervision.