Five years for car-as-weapon driver

Using cars as weapons amounted to extreme violence and the courts would act to deter it, a judge warned yesterday as he jailed a 22-year-old for mowing down a man in a gang clash.

Sione Moli, a concrete worker from the Christchurch suburb of Hoon Hay, was found guilty by a jury in September of wounding 30-year-old Garry Kapea with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

He also admitted driving while his licence was suspended and breaching a community work sentence.

Yesterday in the Christchurch District Court, Judge Michael Crosbie jailed him for five years and nine months.

At his trial, evidence was given that Moli drove his car up a footpath, pinning Mr Kapea against a wall during a fight between Crips and Bloods youth gang affiliates in Phillipstown last year.

He then backed away and drove off, dragging Mr Kapea beneath his vehicle.

Crown prosecutor Tim Mackenzie said the injuries had life-changing effects on Mr Kapea. Judge Crosbie said he accepted the Crown's view that it was extreme violence.

"We can't lose sight of the fact that using a vehicle is an extreme act, one that the courts are extremely concerned about.

"It can only be seen as an extreme act. If you are run down by a vehicle, you are lucky if you recover."

Judge Crosbie said that after Moli left the party, he sat in the car for a time, before driving up on to the footpath and pinning Mr Kapea against a wall,

The victim and Moli had never met. Mr Kapea had been at a party where he had helped to put down a hangi and had listened to the speeches.

"Nothing justifies what you did," the judge told Moli.

The victim remembered lying beneath the car and watching the rear wheels spin while his face was being pushed into the ground.

"He remembers lying on the ground and watching his blood seep out of his clothing and form a pool beneath him. Then it went into his eyes and he had trouble seeing.

"He lay there thinking he was going to die. He woke up five days later in the trauma unit.

"From his perspective he was gone. That was it. It is luck and only luck that didn't see you charged with the ultimate charge."

Mr Kapea was in hospital for two months with a broken pelvis, broken leg and ribs, a collapsed lung, grazes and injuries needing skin grafts.

He had been employed as a commercial cleaner, but could no longer support his partner financially and emotionally and would only ever be able to work 15 hours a week.

Defence lawyer Elizabeth Bulger said Moli maintained "he did not intend to hurt anybody that night, but accepts he has to be sentenced on the basis of the jury's verdict".

She said he was very sorry for the harm he had caused.

- NZPA