Smashed plate over boy’s head

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

Assaults on children were a no-go area, a judge reminded a defendant who admitted lifting a boy by the throat up off the floor and smashing a plate over his head.

Stacey Robert Lloyd Greaves, 35, pleaded guilty to assault with a blunt instrument (a dessert plate) and assault with intent to injure.

Judge Charles Blackie imposed four months community detention with a daily curfew from 8pm to 6am, and 12 months supervision to include programmes for alcohol and other drug abuse. He also ordered Greaves’ contact with the child be limited to that authorised by a probation officer.

The sentence was one recommended by the Department of Corrections.

Both children who were with Greaves and his partner at the time now lived elsewhere.

There was no further possibility of Greaves offending like this in the foreseeable future, the court was told.

Judge Blackie noted Greaves might have been trying to discipline the child but reminded him assaults on children were a no-go area and forbidden by law even before the introduction of anti-smacking legislation in 2004.

The charges related to two specific occasions — one when Greaves put his hands around the child’s throat and lifted him off the floor; the other in which Greaves struck the child on the back of the head with a dinner plate, which shattered.