Three years’ jail for fatal assault on mum
A WOMAN who killed her small, frail 69-year-old mother has claimed she was provoked and she assaulted her in selfdefence.
Annie Rangi, 52, appeared for sentencing before Justice David Collins in the High Court at Napier yesterday.
Rangi was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. Also known as Savage, she had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her mother, Aileen MacDonald, at MacDonald’s Napier home on December 28, 2014.
MacDonald died three days after the attack.
Before sentencing, there was a disputed-facts hearing in which Rangi claimed she had hit her mother’s face twice, and had not hit her to the ground.
The Crown claimed she had hit her mother to the ground and had inflicted five punches to both sides of her head.
The assault happened about 8.45pm after the pair had been drinking and began arguing.
Rangi claimed her mother, who wore a colostomy bag and used a mobility scooter, had become uspet and stood up and threatened to beat her.
She said she was acting in self-defence when she pinned her mother down on the couch then hit her, because she feared her mother would hit her.
Rangi then left the house, thinking her mother would ‘‘sleep it off’’. She bought Chinese takeaways before returning to find police and ambulance at the house, so she drove away.
Later that evening she spoke to her brother in Australia by phone. He told the court that Rangi had said she hit her mother to the floor and had hit her five times on both sides of her face. Rangi denied that.
The judge said a pathology report showed MacDonald had been hit on both sides of the face. He said it made ‘‘very little difference’’ whether her mother was on the couch or floor when she was assaulted.
He said Rangi had not turned herself into police until the next morning, after family persuaded her to do so. The judge told the crowded court that the family had to endure intense suffering watching MacDonald deteriorate in hospital before she was taken off life support.
He noted Rangi was an alcoholic and she and her siblings had been abandoned for four years by MacDonald, who had also been an alcoholic, when they were young.
The offending was aggravated because Rangi intended to cause serious harm, the punches were to the head and caused unconsciousness, and her mother was ‘‘obviously vulnerable and this was the most disturbing factor’’.
Collins said Rangi made no attempt to ascertain the extent of her mother’s injuries, and instead sent a text message to her niece asking her to contact police and an ambulance.
He said ‘‘deep and unresolved feelings’’ toward her mother contributed to her losing control and assaulting her, and accepted that Rangi was genuinely remorseful.
Outside court MacDonald’s niece Julia McIntosh said it had been ‘‘a difficult time for everyone especially as the accused is a family member’’.