Assault the night before wedding derails occasion

IT was meant to be the ‘‘wedding of the year’’.

But Andrew James Spice got so drunk the night before his Queenstown wedding he ended up hitting his fiancee’s brother three times in the head with an iron, then passed out in the hotel lobby.

It was a case of everything having gone ‘‘drastically wrong’’, counsel for Spice, Tanya Surrey, told Judge Dominic Flatley in the Alexandra District Court yesterday.

‘‘He had hoped it would be the wedding of the year and it hasn’t panned out like that.’’

The 54yearold Australian printer had returned drunk to his hotel room at 3am and ‘‘argued briefly’’ with his fiancee, who called her brother for assistance.

The brother ‘‘ushered’’ Spice inside from the balcony but Spice became verbally aggressive and then ‘‘reached for an iron’’ and hit the brother three times in the head with it.

Spice later passed out in front of the lift in the lobby of their hotel.

Ms Surrey said Spice’s wedding did not occur as planned and the couple had lost ‘‘thousands of dollars’’.

But Judge Flatley said Spice had only himself to blame, and it was lucky he had not gravely injured or killed his brotherinlaw.

‘‘I’m supposed to feel sorry for you that your day hasn’t gone as planned . . . But he got himself into this situation.’’

Spice was fined $3000 and ordered to pay $500 emotional harm reparation after being convicted of assault with a blunt weapon, in Queenstown, on September 20.

But the happy couple still got married, on Wednesday, ‘‘just the two of them, and some random passersby as witnesses’’, after their family had had to return to Australia, Ms Surrey said.

Spice was ‘‘extremely remorseful’’ for the distress he had caused his wife and their families, she said.

The couple left the courtroom holding hands.