Hastings kidnapper and eye-gouger stays in jail

Sio Muliipu in 2012, aged 24 and being sentenced to 13 years' jail for an attack on the mother of his three-month-old twins. Photo / File

A Hastings man hit with a near-maximum penalty for domestic violence has again been denied parole, after more than nine years in jail.

Sio Muliipu, now 32, stabbed a girlfriend in an eye on December 5, 2011. The following September he pleaded guilty to injuring with intent to injure at the start of a trial in which he unsuccessfully denied five other charges, including the most serious of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and kidnapping.

The woman, and mother of his twins then aged just 3 months, had been taken from a safe house to a house in Hastings where most of the violence occurred. He claimed the woman's eye injury had happened when he threw toys at her.

He was sentenced to 13 years' jail on the wounding charge, just a year short of the maximum possible penalty.

Because of his previous history, including a 2007 attack in which he stomped on a 19-year-old woman's head, the Crown sought a sentence of preventive detention in the High Court in October 2012, but while declining the application a Judge decided Muliipu would serve a minimum seven years without parole.

Muliipu unsuccessfully appealed the end sentence and the minimum non-parole period, and 18 months ago failed in his first attempt for parole.

His second attempt came in a hearing in Whanganui Prison on June 2, when the board was told support from another woman, with whom he had been said to be in a relationship, had been withdrawn, as had support from her family.

An "addendum" parole assessment report said the woman wanted the board to disregard all her information in previous reports.

The decision says when the woman spoke with his case manager she was feeling very pressured and distressed, but as far as Muliipu was concerned the relationship was strong and supportive.

Muliipu was said to have spoken well and openly to the board about programmes he had completed while in prison, but the board decided that without further reintegration and a robust release plan his risk is "undue".

It wanted him to apply for "external self-care" and to undertake some work "outside the wire" or release to work before he is again able to be considered for parole in February next year.