Basketballer's assault sentencing postponed

The sentencing of a former Otago basketballer and Otago Nuggets coach for causing permanent physical and mental injury to an opposing player has been postponed until next month.

David Trevor Jarvis, a 43-year-old executive officer now living in Australia, was to have been sentenced yesterday in the Dunedin District Court.

But his counsel, John Westgate, asked for an adjournment so information for the sentencing process could be obtained, and to allow Jarvis to arrange "meaningful and appropriate" reparation payments.

Jarvis was this week found guilty of injuring University of Otago student Tony Ashton under circumstances that, if death had occurred, he would have been guilty of manslaughter.

Mr Ashton, 21, was left severely disabled by a traumatic brain injury after he was elbowed in the right temple and fell heavily during a game on May 8 last year. Jarvis denied the elbowing was deliberate.

The case has sporting bodies looking at the implications, but Andrew Scott-Howman, of law firm Bell Gully, does not believe it paves the way for more similar prosecutions.

"You are never going to see, in this country, people suing each other for getting injured on the rugby field because we have accident compensation," Mr Scott-Howman said.

It was still a "very high hurdle" before police would take an interest in an incident in a sporting fixture.

"In contact sports, like rugby, the rules of the game actually contemplate a bit of biffo."

- NZPA