Attempted murderer jailed after supervision difficulties

File photo / NZ Herald

An Auckland man who avoided jail when he was first sentenced for choking his mother to the point of unconsciousness is now heading to prison.

Jonathan James Hodgson was sentenced last September to two years' intensive supervision with special conditions and 200 hours of community work after admitting attempting to murder his Queenstown-based mother on December 21, 2009.

But a 15 month jail term was today imposed in its place, following an application by the Department of Corrections when Hodgson got into trouble with his supervision, his lawyer Howard Lawry said.

"It turned out he could no longer comply with his intensive supervision sentence because he couldn't stay at the place listed in his conditions," Mr Lawry told NZPA.

"We explored other locations but they didn't come to anything and so on my advice he wasn't able to oppose the department's application because he didn't have an alternative place he could go to."

Mr Lawry said Hodgson was still contesting the department's allegation that he breached his supervision and it would proceed through the courts.

Hodgson was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attempted murder, which occurred one month after his son was born.

His mother had come up from Queenstown to help with caring for the child but Hodgson, who held some long-term resentment toward his mother, snapped after he returned home to see her holding his son.

He choked her unconscious, but stopped once he saw how bad her condition was.

- NZPA