Eliot Harmer of Hutt Valley, pictured in March 2016. He has been jailed after his partner was injured after a fire. Photo / supplied
Eliot Harmer of Hutt Valley, pictured in March 2016. He has been jailed after his partner was injured after a fire. Photo / supplied
Eliot Harmer, 53, was sentenced to 13 months in prison for accidentally setting his partner on fire.
The incident happened when Harmer was cooking cannabis oil at their home.
The victim suffered severe burns and was hospitalised for three months.
A man who accidentally set his partner on fire while cooking cannabis oil wept in court as a judge described the horrifying incident.
The victim was hospitalised for three months after suffering horrendous burns, unable to eat, talk or breathe properly for “a long period”, Judge Lawrence Hinton said today.
Eliot Harmer, 53, appeared in the Hutt Valley District Court this morning for sentencing, having pleaded guilty to a charge of injures if death, manslaughter. The uncommon charge refers to cases where somebody causes an injury that would have resulted in a manslaughter charge if the victim died. Harmer also pleaded guilty to drug, assault, and breaching protection order charges.
According to the summary of facts, Harmer was at home in Lower Hutt with his partner in April last year as their toddler and teenage daughters slept in their bedrooms.
About 3am, Harmer was in the kitchen manufacturing cannabis oil in a pot over an electric gas cooker, the summary said.
The substance in the pot caught alight, and Harmer tried to put it out with water, causing a small explosion in the form of a “flash fire”.
He carried the burning pot towards an external door, shouting “watch out” to his partner, who was sitting in a small alcove next to the door.
He threw the pot out the open door at the same time as his partner stood up and tried to get out of the way, accidentally getting some of the flaming substance on her dressing gown.
Unable to take the dressing gown off, the victim fled outside where neighbours helped put out the fire.
“The victim received third-degree burns to her right hand, arm and shoulder. She received extensive burns to the right upper side of her face, chest and back,” the summary said.
“These injuries are disfigurements to the skin that are likely to be permanent.”
At the time the summary was written, just over a month after the incident, the victim had had to undergo more than 30 sedations for skin grafts and dressing changes.
Judge Hinton today said the burns had “had a devastating emotional and physical impact on her and utterly changed her life”.
He said two victim impact statements provided by the victim made for “distressing” reading.
In them, she described how she required emergency treatment and suffered significant pain. She was in hospital for three months.
“For a long period she couldn’t talk, eat or breathe properly,” Judge Hinton said.
He said the victim described herself as “emotionally scarred” and wrote in her victim impact statement that the incident had completely changed her life.
Harmer shed tears in the dock as Judge Hinton described the effect of his offending.
“You did not intend any violence towards your partner. The fact is, though, that you were reckless in terms of your manufacture.
“You threw potential for injury in her direction when she could not easily escape.”
The man was sentenced in the Hutt Valley District Court.
A report into Harmer’s background showed he had a difficult childhood, suffered from mental health and literacy issues and a cannabis use disorder.
Judge Hinton said Harmer had written him a letter in which he spoke of wanting a second chance in life.
“You are very regretful for what happened. You’ve been able to reflect whilst in custody on your actions and what you need to do to improve ... I have taken that letter into account as something written from the heart.”
While he earlier gave a sentencing indication that Harmer could potentially serve a community-based sentence, he did not have an appropriate address to serve that sentence in, meaning he had to be jailed.
Judge Hinton adopted a starting point of 22 months in prison, with a two month uplift for the other charges Harmer had admitted. He allowed discounts for Harmer’s guilty plea and the personal matters referred to in his background report.
He sentenced Harmer to 13 months in prison with six months of post-release conditions.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
