Left with brain bleed after alleged racist taunt

A 23-year-old who attacked a man for allegedly racially abusing him is lucky his victim did not die, a judge says.

Luan Minh Pham accepted he over-reacted to ‘‘random racial abuse’’ on a central Christchurch street late on August 7, leaving his victim with bleeding on the brain.

The street fight happened after Pham and 22-year-old Benjamin Paul Conner left a city bar together. Pham had been drinking but was not drunk.

There was an exchange of words with two other men and then a fight in which two brothers were injured. Conner admitted wounding one of them and was sentenced in December to four months’ home detention and emotional harm reparations.

Pham admitted an assault charge for one victim, and intentionally injuring the other.

Conner hit one of them when he had his hands up indicating he did not want to fight. He fell and may have hit his head, and Pham punched him while he was down.

Christchurch District Court Judge Tom Gilbert said it was not possible to say whether the damage – fractured skull, broken eye socket, lost teeth, and bleeding on the brain – had been caused by the punches by both men, or the fall.

He noted the incident was allegedly triggered by racial abuse, but said: ‘‘If that did occur, while it does [the victims] no credit, it is not an excuse for using your fists in the way that you did.’’

Defence counsel Judith Walshe said Pham was ‘‘going to have to have a strategy for dealing with that sort of ignorance. It is not the first time it has happened’’.

Pham was ‘‘fortunate’’ his victim was not more seriously injured, the judge said. ‘‘Every year in New Zealand there are instances like this where people fall over having been punched, or hit their head, or are punched on the ground, and they die.’’

Pham was sentenced to five months of home detention and ordered to to pay $3000 to his two victims as emotional harm reparations.