The judge was concerned about the violence in a home around a young girl. Photo / 123RF
A judge has questioned a man with a history of violence towards his partner about what kind of message he’s sending his daughter.
“What’s the message she’s perceiving when she sees Mum getting bashed up all the time?” Judge Greg Davis asked the man as he appeared in the Whangārei District Court today on family harm charges.
“If girls follow their mums, isn’t the risk here this is what she should expect?”
Trevor Mohi, of Tikipunga, was represented by lawyer Oscar Hintze and appeared for sentencing on one charge of assault with intent to injure and one charge of breach of protection order against his partner of 15 years.
Mohi’s latest offending occurred in August 2023 while he was at her home.
The court heard the pair had been arguing for almost an hour and Mohi’s partner asked him to leave multiple times but as she followed him out through the garage, she fell.
As she got up and tried to escape Mohi followed her into the lounge and punched her twice in the shoulder. He left the room but returned and punched her six more times in various areas of her body.
Police prosecutor Stu Wilkes said Mohi was no stranger to the court and had history with the complainant over the years.
“There are multiple offences against the same victim with final warnings but here we are again back in the saddle, if you will, at the rodeo.
“He just keeps coming back. It’s a fatal attraction to the complainant,” Wilkes said.
Wilkes said the last time Mohi was in court on a breach of protection order, he tried to call the complainant days before his sentencing.
“Six days before his scheduled sentencing for a breach of protection order, he’s breached again. He has seven breaches of Corrections which is a concern to police, will he abide by any orders?”
Judge Davis said he was concerned about the impact Mohi’s offending would have on his young daughter.
“The one thing the summary doesn’t talk to me about is, where was your daughter?
“What would you say if she came home with a black eye? How much of that is attributable to the expectations that have been created by this home environment?
“If we’re giving a message to our girls that what they can expect is to receive the bash, then we as fathers have failed. That’s on you, you can challenge that picture,” he told Mohi, who hung his head as he stood in the dock.
As Mohi had already spent four and a half months in prison, Judge Davis reduced his sentence to eight months of home detention.
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.
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