A man bashed over the head with a pot plant after he refused to hand over a cigarette needed surgery for a broken eye socket. His offender was sentenced in the Nelson District Court today. Photo / 123RF
A man bashed over the head with a pot plant after he refused to hand over a cigarette needed surgery for a broken eye socket. His offender was sentenced in the Nelson District Court today. Photo / 123RF
All he wanted was a cigarette but when he was refused James Rameka Kumeroa became enraged and smashed his victim over the head with a terracotta pot.
The injury caused would usually have put him behind bars, but events leading up to the violent outburst have led a judge to throw down the gauntlet in a final chance for Kumeroa to prove himself.
He was today sentenced to 12 months’ intensive supervision on a charge of injuring with intent to injure after he assaulted a fellow resident having a late-night coffee and cigarette outside the Nelson backpacker premises on August 7 last year.
The victim was later flown from Nelson to Hutt Hospital for surgery on a broken eye socket after Kumeroa attacked him and chased the terrified and bleeding man down the hallway to his room, where he phoned for an ambulance.
The victim was left with a large open wound to his head and lost two teeth in the attack, which began with Kumeroa striking him violently in the head before he was struck with the pot plant.
From outside the victim’s room, Kumeroa kept insisting he hand over the cigarettes.
The victim was later flown from Nelson to Hutt Hospital for surgery on a broken eye socket after he was violently attacked. Photo / NZME
Kumeroa was found later by police at Boulder Bank Drive - a remote seaside location in Nelson. A search of his car found a small amount of methamphetamine and a pipe for smoking it, for which he was also charged.
Kumeroa, a 44-year-old stricken by alcohol and substance abuse from a young age, has a history of offending stretching over 15 pages, mostly for violence and dishonesty offences.
He had offended from a young age to “keep the alcohol flowing”, before imbibing harder drugs, Judge David Ruth said.
His behaviour was said to be exacerbated by a serious brain injury after he was attacked in a prison van, but he was today granted a reprieve greater than his family imagined as they sat in court listening.
Instead of remaining in prison, where he’s been since his arrest last August, Kumeroa was sentenced to 12 months’ supervision and made subject to judicial monitoring, with a word or two from Judge Ruth.
“If things go well, it will give me some comfort that I have chosen correctly when I have given you this chance.”
Kumeroa’s lawyer Mark Dollimore said it was through no fault of Kumeroa’s that he ended up in the Nelson backpackers’ that night last August.
Kumeroa had been largely adrift, having been tossed around from place to place in an effort to find an address that was safe, and from where he could get the support he needed.
He finally found security in a motel, where he was “doing quite well” in his own small unit, and where he helped as a caretaker.
He had also engaged with mental health services, Dollimore said.
“Through no fault of his own, he lost that good spot and was placed at the backpackers. It didn’t go well.”
Dollimore said the trigger was a change in rooms and Kumeroa’s discovery the previous occupant had died in the room, and that the bedding had not been changed.
“The room had not been blessed or cleansed. Not even the linen or pillow had been changed.
“He felt it was tapu,” Dollimore said.
He said it was no excuse for what he had done to the victim, for whom he had expressed remorse, but it might help explain his actions, which were exacerbated by the extra sedatives he’d taken for the sleep he was lacking.
Dollimore said Kumeroa had developed hopes and goals; he had the option of living in a caravan at a local motor camp, and he wanted to work in Nelson’s hop industry.
He told the court Kumeroa had stabilised since being in custody after his arrest last August. He had also cooperated with the prison doctor.
“There’s no question when one reads the alcohol and drug report my client has had a very difficult childhood,” Dollimore said in asking the court to consider an alternative to prison.
The Crown supported imprisonment, not from the vantage of “locking him up and throwing away the key”, but because of Kumeroa’s long history of offending.
Prosecutor Abigail Goodison said community safety was a priority, but the Crown’s position would be different if he had a supportive, electronically monitored address available.
“That is the Crown’s concern,” Goodison said.
Judge Ruth said no mitigating factors led to the provocation – the violence arose simply because Kumeroa was agitated by not getting a cigarette, but he did accept the personal circumstances to which Kumeroa had been subjected, and which were not his fault.
