$48,000 for brain injury from ladder fall

have done that to a small puppy.’’

Caesar survived and was later returned to Fraser.

She claimed Butcher and the police were needlessly aggressive. She and her flatmates were evicted a week after the event, because of damage at the property.

Crown lawyer Fiona Cleary told the jury it was a simple case. Fraser had been highly intoxicated and ‘‘flew into an irrational rage’’ that involved assaulting Butcher.

Fraser’s lawyer, Scott Jefferson, said Butcher had made up his story and the Crown had produced no physical evidence of his being assaulted.

Despite Fraser pleading not guilty to the charges the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts. Fraser will be sentenced in July. A Wellington builder has to pay out more than $60,000 after a worker fell from a faulty ladder, suffering skull fractures and a brain injury, and needing his skull reconstructed.

Matthew Wright, who was 21 at the time, had been working as an apprentice on a Newlands building in March last year.

He and another worker were removing cladding from a building at ground level. Once it was finished, he went up a ladder to start removing a balcony, but fell when the ladder slipped.

Employer Geordie Grieve, a sole trade builder, pleaded guilty

‘‘I have not been able to live the life I want.’’ Matthew Wright

to failing to ensure Wright was not exposed to a hazard, a fall from a height.

The ladder was found to have damaged rubber feet that needed replacing.

Grieve accepted they should have been checked, and he should not have relied on his workers to tell him about problems.

Wright spent 21 days in intensive care, on a hospital ward, then in rehab, which included having a portion of his skull removed to relieve brain swelling, catching pneumonia and meningitis, and surgery to reconstruct his skull before he could learn to balance again while he walked.

Wright said he had 50 per cent hearing loss, paranoia and anxiety and was not able to work.

‘‘I have not been able to live the life I want and not had a normal chance as a 21-year-old to live life,’’ he told Wellington District Court judge Peter Hobbs in a victim impact statement yesterday.

In another victim impact statement, his mother said nothing had prepared her for seeing her son on life support at the hospital when she arrived after the incident.

The judge said he could not undo the harm that had been caused but had to apply the law which meant he had to calculate the fine and payments for emotional harm and reparation.

‘‘The events are a graphic illustration of how anybody’s life can be changed in a moment forever.’’

He ordered Grieve to pay a fine of $15,000 and a reparation and emotional harm payment of $48,592.43.