Hoops coach choked partner
A former basketball coach at a top private school in Christchurch has been convicted of strangling and assaulting his partner, who he met when she was 17 and he was her coach.
Wade Rodney Parata, a coach at St Andrew’s College, was sentenced to six months of supervision with a condition that he attend counselling when he appeared in the Christchurch District Court yesterday. It was Parata’s first conviction – a fact his lawyer described as ‘‘remarkable’’ given Parata came from a family ‘‘entrenched in criminal activity, gangs and violence’’.
Parata, 35, first met the victim about five years ago when she was 17 years old and he was her basketball coach. She was not a student at St Andrew’s College. What began as a coach-player relationship eventually turned into a sexual relationship that was marred with conflict.
The victim, now in her 20s, told the court Parata was often suspicious of what she was up to and would verbally abuse her calling her a ‘‘slut’’ and a ‘‘skank’’.
She said he told her she was unable to make a career out of basketball without him and that he was risking his reputation to be with her.
The victim said because their relationship was secret, she had very few people she could turn to for support and her mental health continued to deteriorate.
During the early hours of April 16 last year, Parata and the victim were at his home when he learned that she had been talking to another man. He became enraged, grabbed her by her hair and slapped her forcefully across both sides of her face. He pushed her onto the bed and put both hands around her neck, strangling her.
The victim told the court she tried to loosen his grip saying ‘‘stop, stop, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’’, but she had no chance of defending herself against someone of his size. She remembered closing her eyes and thinking she was going to die.
When Parata finally let go of her, she wanted to go home but he told her she couldn’t go anywhere ‘‘in that state’’. The victim said she believed Parata was only worried about what he had done and wanted time to come up with a plan. She left his house the next day. ‘‘Wade has impacted my life in a very negative way and I am glad to be free from him,’’ she told the court. Parata was arrested later that year and pleaded guilty to the charges in March. He told police he lost control and ‘‘blacked out’’ during the assault.
Defence lawyer Anselm Williams applied for Parata to be discharged without conviction on the basis the consequences of a conviction would be out of all proportion with the offence.
Williams told the court Parata lost his job as a coach and housemaster at St Andrew’s College after he was charged and had been unable to gain other employment in his field of sporting and youth development while the charges against him were pending.
He pointed out that Parata came from a difficult background, but still had managed to stay out of the justice system up until now, and had built a successful life and career for himself. ‘‘He comes from a family which has [been] entrenched in criminal activity and gangs and violence,’’ said Williams. Parata’s father is Dean Haweturi Parata who was found guilty of manslaughter in Westport in 1995.
At the time his son, Benton Parata, was found guilty of assault.
Benton Parata was 44 years old when he died in hospital in March 2015 after he suffered severe head trauma when he was attacked in his cell at Christchurch Men’s Prison. At the time he had been serving a sentence for receiving stolen property, driving with excess breath alcohol and driving while disqualified.
‘‘Everyone knows the family that [Wade Parata] comes from, everyone knows that he is the son of people who have previously been before the courts in the most serious of ways,’’ said Williams.
‘‘But also everyone knew that he was not cut from that cloth, and now he runs the risk of simply being categorised in the same way as them when, of course, he is someone who has had a very prosocial and proactive life . . . ’’
Parata’s application to be discharged without conviction was declined. He was also ordered to make an emotional harm payment of $1000 to the victim.