Jailed for assault on woman out walking her dog

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A morning walk with her dog by the Wairoa River turned into an ordeal for a woman when a mentally ill man tried to kiss her and drag her off into bushes.

The woman managed to overpower him, picked up her dog and ran to the nearby road where she flagged down a passing motorist.

Thomas Mason Whatuira, 36, later pleaded guilty to indecent assault. He was jailed for four and a half months when he appeared for sentence recently in Gisborne District Court.

Counsel Heather Vaughn told the court Whatuira had previously been diagnosed with a mental health condition and was known to community mental health services.

However, when this incident happened last April, he had been non-compliant with his medication regime. A forensic psychiatrist’s report showed he might have had active psychosis at the time.

Whatuira had no previous history of this type of offending and only one previous violence-related conviction, Ms Vaughn said.

He had voluntarily engaged with treatment while on remand in custody and had been subsequently assessed as fit to plead.

Judge Warren Cathcart accepted Ms Vaughn’s submission that although worrisome, the actual assault was low level and opportunistic. However, the judge noted it was also persistent.

After Whatuira tried to kiss the woman, she had pushed him backwards and told him to back off. Whatuira refused and grabbed her hand tightly. He tried to give her $100, and said, “show us your tits”.

The woman demanded he let her go and said someone would see him but Whatuira grabbed both her arms tightly, said “f*** you bitch”, and pulled her about two metres off the path into bushes near the river.

Police located Whatuira a few days later and interviewed him. He admitted trying to grab the woman but gave different explanations about what he intended to do. He said he had not had a girlfriend for a long time and wanted to have sex. He thought it would be “a little bit better” to grab a girl rather than ask one out.

He said he knew he was in trouble, he was trying to take her to the river to have sex, he hadn’t had it in ages and would like it, but he knew he couldn’t.

He thought about “smacking her in the head” because he said people had not been treating him right, but later said he didn’t intend to hurt her.

Setting a sentence starting point of 10 months imprisonment, Judge Cathcart allowed a full 25 percent (two and a half months) discount for Whatuira’s guilty plea and a further three months discount for his mental health issues, which were accepted as being directly causative of the offending.

There was no discount for remorse. Ms Vaughn conceded that while Whatuira genuinely meant it when he said sorry, his cognitive deficits made it difficult to assess whether he had any actual insight into his offending — a requirement before the court will give credit for remorse.

In submissions, Ms Vaughn also spoke of the uphill battle Whatuira would face on his release. Wairoa lacked any suitable community programmes to assist Whatuira.

His previous accommodation was no longer available and he would have to find somewhere new to live.