A man guilty of an "extreme and prolonged act of violence" against a Hastings woman in January has been sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison.
Anthony Haddon Williams, 28, of Hastings, was sentenced in the Napier District Court yesterday on one charge of kidnapping, two of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, one of burglary, two of threatening to kill, one of theft of a vehicle, five of assault with a blunt instrument and one of theft from a dwelling.
Judge Bridget Mackintosh said Williams could have killed his victim.
He attacked a 58-year-old woman, who boarded in Flaxmere with Williams' grandfather last year, and was taken to stay with her ex-husband in Hastings.
Williams, his partner, mother and two juveniles went to her new address uninvited on January 7, accused her of taking money from the grandfather and searched her belongings.
Williams grabbed her by the hair and punched and kicked her unconscious.
The couple were told that if they said anything they would be "dead meat".
Suffering a fractured eye socket and other injuries, the woman was taken to hospital by her ex-husband, accompanied by one of the group.
The man, under directions from the assailants, told staff she had been beaten by unknown girls.
Later during dinner and in the presence of her ex-husband and amid jokes about it being the woman's last meal, the assailants discussed taking the woman to a riverbank, beating her to death and burning her to destroy evidence.
After dinner, the woman got into her ex-husband's car, believing she was being taken home, but the group took her to the banks of the Ngaruroro River near the Chesterhope Bridge, and allegedly under the instructions of one of his co-accused, Williams took part in punching the woman again and kicking her.
Semi-conscious, she was taken back to the Hastings address and cleaned-up.
The woman was kept in bed for two days as further threats were made by text message and phone advising against calling the police.
The police were called on January 13 this year after a car carrying the couple and two friends was rammed by a member of the group.
The car was later set alight.
Judge Mackintosh said Williams' offending was "appalling". "She [the victim] says she feels like she is serving a life sentence of her own, living in fear of this happening again."
Williams' co-accused, partner Luana Sullivan, 25, and mother Roseanne Audrey Haddon, 50, are due to appear in the High Court in Napier on May 12.
Attacker jailed for violence
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