Nine years’ jail for restaurant stabber

A person who stabbed three people in a frenzied assault inside a Cambridge restaurant has been jailed for nine years and three months.

Emma Nelson, 31, must serve at least 60% of that sentence before she can be considered for parole.

Nelson appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court yesterday.

She had earlier pleaded guilty to three charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, as well as charges of breach of a protection order, intentional damage and resisting police.

Although Nelson goes by the name Emma and is known to identify as a woman, she is named on police charging documents as Matthew Richard Nelson. As the court was told, she now prefers to go by the name Pandora Electra – and it was this name by which Judge Noel Cocurullo referred to her during the sentencing process.

The names and any identifying details of Nelson’s three victims were suppressed by the judge. Other matters pertaining to Nelson’s situation were also suppressed.

It was on May 4 this year when Nelson entered the restaurant through a rear entrance about 8.35pm.

Inside, two of the victims – a man and a woman – were standing in the kitchen with their backs to the back door.

As the summary states, the accused entered the kitchen, with one arm raised and, holding a knife in their clenched fist, approached the man ‘‘in a quick and aggressive manner’’ before stabbing him in the left shoulder in a downwards motion. A customer was in the restaurant at the time and attempted to intervene in the fracas but was then stabbed in the right side of his abdomen.

He lost about a litre of blood as a result.

The injuries to the female victim were severe.

They included a laceration to the left side of her face and a stab wound to her upper left back that punctured her right lung, causing it to collapse and blood to flow into her chest cavity.

In spite of her injuries, she ran out the front doors of the restaurant and across the road to the BP service station to get help.

Meanwhile, Nelson walked out of the restaurant holding a chair, which was then allegedly thrown at the front windows of the business. In court, Crown prosecutor Rebecca Mann argued there was ‘‘a demonstrable need’’ for a minimum period of imprisonment of two-thirds of the sentence.

A pre-sentence report had found Nelson to be at high risk of further violent harm to others.

Mann read victim impact statements to the court from the two male victims.

One, who was aged 52, was still recovering from the stab wound to his shoulder. The injury had put a huge financial strain on him, and he was still in rehabilitative therapy.

The other victim, who was stabbed in the abdomen, had continued to feel weak and tired since the stabbing and was no longer able to socialise with his friends.

‘‘I miss my life before. I miss my life being normal,’’ he had written.

Reparation was sought by the two victims of $46,000 and $20,000 respectively.

As Nelson would be in prison for a long time, Judge Cocurullo opted not to order this, lest the victims be further revictimised by the prospect of getting money that would never arrive.

‘‘Your selfish behaviour and serious offending casts, for them, a long and traumatic shadow,’’ the judge told Nelson.

‘‘Each have suffered and continue to suffer for your offending against them.’’