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A man who shouted "I don't want you to have this baby", then repeatedly punched, kicked and hit his pregnant partner in the stomach with a chair has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.
Lange Fonoti, 24, attacked his then 17-year-old partner, Palu Aholelei, by punching her in the stomach during a "sustained and frenzied attack" at the couple's Auckland home in September 2006. He then kneed her in the stomach five times and picked up a chair and hit her with it, striking her in the stomach three times.
She was 15 weeks pregnant and the couple had been together for six months. Fonoti admitted procuring a miscarriage by assault just before the start of his High Court trial in October. He was last week sentenced on that charge, as well as another of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm that he pleaded guilty to on the first day of an earlier trial.
Court documents reveal Fonoti followed Aholelei into their bedroom and told her, "I don't want you to have this baby, I want you to have a miscarriage".
He made her lie on the bed and began punching her in the stomach.
He then kneed her and picked up a chair and hit her with it, and ripped a piece of wood off the side of the bed and hit her with it, only releasing her after she began calling out to neighbours for help. She had a miscarriage two weeks later and suffered extensive bruising that left her in agony for weeks.
Before the beating, Fonoti punched her several times about the head and face and dragged her along a hallway by her hair. When her nose bled on to the carpet he made her scrub it clean.
Justice John Hansen said the incident was a "sustained and frenzied attack of extreme violence".
At the sentencing in the High Court at Auckland, Justice Hansen said the length of the assault and its viciousness were aggravating factors. The only mitigating factor was a very late guilty plea.
"Given all of the matters - the extensive violence, the use of weapons, the deliberate targeting of the head, the deliberate targeting of the stomach in an attempt to kill the foetus - I am satisfied the starting point should be one of nine years," Justice Hansen said.
On the intent to procure a miscarriage by assault he was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail. On the charge of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm he was sentenced to three years in jail, to be served concurrently.
He accepted a Crown application that Fonoti serve a minimum jail term which he set at four-and-a-half years, half the total sentence.
