A man who boasted he “knocked that motherf***** out” after a punch-up in a Salvation Army second-hand store will stay in prison for now.
Stephen Raniera Rangi Elliot appeared for sentencing in the Napier District Court on Tuesday on charges of assault with intent to injure and assault on a female.
Judge Russell Collins sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment.
As Elliot has already spent four months in prison while awaiting sentence, he can expect to be released when he has served half of that – in about three-and-a-half months.
However, Judge Collins also granted Elliott leave to apply for home detention should a suitable address become available.
Elliot pleaded not guilty to the charges after an altercation with shop customer Anthony O’Brien and O’Brien’s wife Sharon O’Toole. He was found guilty after a three-day jury trial.
The two men came to blows in the Salvation Army Family Shop in Taradale, Napier, in January 2021 after O’Brien objected to something Elliot was saying to a staff member about Covid-19.
Elliot was saying that his brother in France had caught the disease and it was no worse than a cold or the flu.
O’Brien objected to this because his mother-in-law was dying with Covid in an English hospital.
During the three-day jury trial in the Napier District Court in September, O’Brien admitted that he threw the first punch in the dispute, but only after he had been backed up against a display cabinet and Elliot had pushed his wife.
Elliot told police he was acting in self-defence after O’Brien “got me a good one”.
In court on Tuesday, Judge Collins said that if Elliot stood back and looked into his heart, he would know this was not a case of self-defence.
“You were so much more powerful than Mr O’Brien,” the judge said.
Elliot, 45, weighs 140 kilograms and has been training in martial arts since the age of 10. O’Brien is 15 years his senior, 175 centimetres tall and 80kg.
Judge Collins said that Elliot had been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.
He felt demeaned when his view of the world and the Covid epidemic was challenged. The judge said he saw it as a “challenge to your masculinity and your physical power”.
He provoked violence for what he saw as an affront, but it was “violence where you always knew you were going to be the winner”.
“You really do know that is not an appropriate response.”
Immediately after the incident, Elliot recorded a four-minute social media video in which he admitted to knocking O’Brien unconscious.
“What’s up with these middle-aged f****g white boys [...] who think they can take on someone like me?” he said in the video.
Stephen Elliot is the brother of former All Black and Hurricanes and Chiefs rugby player Hika Elliot, who is now playing in France.
The 19-year-old was found in a remote area in the hills of Upper Hutt.