Northland man off to prison after punchup at kids’ rugby training

When Lindon Matthews took offence at the way another father supposedly looked at him during a kids’ rugby training session, he paid no attention to the audience who was watching on as he started hurling punches.

Now the Northland man, who has an extensive criminal history, has been warned by a judge to grow up and know when to walk away.

“You can’t beat people up,” Judge Gene Tomlinson told Matthews as he was sentenced recently on one charge of assault with intent to injure in Whangārei District Court.

Matthews was watching his children at rugby training in Whangārei in 2023 when he believed another parent looked at him funny.

The Crown said Matthews walked towards the other man, asking “You all good?”.

Matthews immediately threw four or five punches, dropping the man to the ground before enticing him to get up and fight.

When the man wouldn’t return the request, Matthews left the sports field where the children, who were all aged under 10, were training.

The court heard Matthews has racked up an extensive criminal history in Australia with the judge saying he’s faced almost every charge possible from burglary to breaching multiple court orders.

Judge Tomlinson said when he returned to New Zealand, the offending continued at the training session.

Matthews told pre-sentence report writers that he believed the man was looking at him and wanted a fight.

“When are you going to grow up?” Judge Tomlinson asked Matthews as he stood in the dock.

“It makes people think ‘oh this is how Whangārei people go about their life’.

Defence lawyer Connor Taylor said the five months Matthews has been on remand had given him time to think and submitted a letter of remorse.

But Judge Tomlinson wasn’t buying it.

“I don’t accept this,” he said.

“He just wrote it, it doesn’t mean anything, this [the letter] comes from someone else in jail saying ‘here’s the things to say’.

“With his history, I don’t buy it.”

Instead, Judge Tomlinson took the time to speak one-on-one with Matthews warning him if he did not change his ways, he would be dealing with his children in 15 years.

“Nah,” Matthews responded.

“When I was a lawyer, I had a kid come through and I was his lawyer for his grandfather. Three generations I dealt with that family, at some point, it’s got to stop,” the judge told him.

Judge Tomlinson sentenced Matthews to 18 months’ imprisonment with some final words.

“If you just kept your hands to yourself, you wouldn’t be going to jail. Being a man is being strong enough to say it don’t matter what they say ... walk away.”

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.