The High Court has rejected a Northlander's challenge to the validity of his detention based on what he claimed was unreliable evidence.
Peria man Maxwell Charles Dallimo Tobin was sentenced in the Kaikohe District Court last year to four and a half years' jail after earlier being found guilty by a jury of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
He dragged his 67-year-old neighbour along a road by his beard and slammed him into a letterbox during a dispute over barking dogs and a Facebook post.
His neighbour suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Tobin applied in the High Court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing his conviction was based on unreliable evidence.