Addiction prompted tyre iron attack

Jason King was looking for a way to fund his next meth fix when he spotted a woman sitting in her vehicle.

What followed was a violent carjacking in which the victim was attacked with a tyre iron.

King, 33, was fresh out of jail and in the throes of a three-day crime spree when he drove through South Taranaki and saw the woman in her ute.

He pulled up beside her and asked if she had a tyre iron he could borrow. He took her tyre iron to his vehicle and pretended to change the tyre, New Plymouth District Court heard yesterday.

He then approached the woman and swung the tyre iron at her head.

The woman quickly reacted, leaning forward and raising her arm to protect herself, meaning the tool struck her forearm and her hand.

But King swung the tool at her twice more before a struggle over the door ensued.

As the woman managed to get out, King drove off in her ute, which was later found abandoned. It had to be written off due to meth contamination.

The March 2, 2021, carjacking happened in the course of a crime spree that began the previous day.

King had stolen a car from another woman in Taranaki.

He stole petrol at a Z station in Stratford and the next day stole about $500 worth of items from the O¯punake Four Square and petrol from a BP in Eltham. After the carjacking, King stole petrol from the Oily Rag Garage in Piopio and then from a Z in Te Awamutu.

Judge Noel Sainsbury said it was a mixture of luck and the woman’s quick reactions that stopped the injuries from the tyre iron attack from being much worse.

King just wanted to get a car to sell so he could buy methamphetamine, the judge said.

King was on release conditions at the time, having been released from jail less than a fortnight earlier.

Rather than making a change with his newfound freedom, he had gone back to a pattern of serious offending, Judge Sainsbury said.

While King had a “supportive and positive” upbringing, from his early teens his interest in school began to wane and he eventually moved into crime.

Meth addiction played a “huge” role in his offending, the judge said.

But King has recently expressed a desire to kick the habit and leave behind his life of crime.

“This is early days, it’s a positive indication. The proof ’s going to be in what you do about it,” the judge said.

After considering the aggravating and mitigating factors in the case, Judge Sainsbury sentenced King to five years in prison on all matters.