Parade of violence
There was violence, sad histories and lengthy jail terms – and all before lunch.
For Judge Geoff Rea, sentencing day at Napier District Court last Friday began with Matthew Fuller, a 28-year-old who assaulted his partner in a Ha¯ wera graveyard after they attended a tangi in November 2017.
The victim was punched, kicked, had bones broken and was choked to the point she blacked out and believed she was going to die.
‘‘If you seriously think you can behave like this and avoid a prison sentence then you are dreaming, quite frankly,’’ the judge told Fuller before sentencing him to two years, two months’ jail.
‘‘This sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.’’
Next up was Jordan StrattonPineaha, a 23-year-old promising rugby player who had held hopes of playing Super Rugby for the Chiefs.
In March he broke into a man’s house, held a knife to him and stole a laptop computer and cellphone.
Judge Rea granted StrattonPineaha’s unusual request to address the court personally. He read his pepeha¯ then spoke of his addiction to methamphetamine, which saw him shun his family and partner and commit crime.
‘‘Being locked up at this time in my life was honestly a blessing in disguise,’’ he told the judge.
Judge Rea said it was ‘‘far too often these days’’ that he saw young men with family support and wonderful prospects who had
‘‘This sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.’’ Judge Geoff Rea
been led astray by drugs and the people involved in dealing them.
The judge said he had initially planned to jail Stratton-Pineaha for seven years, but had been convinced he was a different person now, and was obviously remorseful. He sentenced him to five years and two months in jail.
That did not please StrattonPineaha’s grandmother, who stormed out of the court yelling an expletive aimed at the judge.
Next in the dock was CrossJackson Shaw, 17, one of four involved in the aggravated robbery of a Hastings bottle store in September that saw the storekeeper stabbed six times and nearly killed.
Shaw entered the shop holding an iron bar.
Judge Rea said what happened to the storekeeper ‘‘happens when young men like you arm yourself and go in all fired up trying to steal cash, cigarettes and alcohol’’.
‘‘You had little thought at all of the fear that you inflict on people you confront . . . you probably have little concern what happens to them,’’ the judge said.
He acknowledged that Shaw had been mistreated as a child and had mental health issues, then sentenced him to four years in jail.
As the lunch break approached, Shaw’s co-offender, Osman Keenan, made an appearance.
Keenan, 18, used a long-bladed kitchen knife to stab the 21-yearold storekeeper six times. This was after the storekeeper opened the till and pleaded ‘‘don’t hurt me, you can take what you want’’.
Asked by police why he stabbed the victim, Keenan replied ‘‘with all the domestics with my mum I needed to let off some anger’’.
Judge Rea noted Keenan’s various behavioural and intellectual issues, and that he had suffered abuse as a child, then sentenced him to six years in jail.
And so ended the morning for Judge Rea, one of 165 District Court judges working in one of 58 District Courts around the country.
It was not an overly unusual sentencing day.
A DEMANDING TASK
In the year to June 2018, there were 212,875 charges laid in New Zealand courts against 75,493 adults (aged 17 years or older).
According to Ministry of Justice figures, 62,313 adults – 83 per cent of all adults charged – were convicted of at least one offence. About three-quarters of them were male and roughly half of them were under the age of 30.
The proportion of males to females with a convicted charge has changed little over the past three decades.
But while the number of convictions dished out by judges across the country has fallen 3 per cent since 2016-17, sentencing remains one of their most demanding and exacting tasks, Chief District Court Judge JanMarie Doogue said.
At any given time, about 9000 cases were awaiting sentence in the District Court, with the high volumes making it a pressured environment, as does the regular exposure to disturbing evidence involving violence and sexual offending. ‘‘It takes a toll on everyone in the court system,’’ she said.