KEY POINTS:
A man who plunged a knife through another man's face during a domestic dispute could receive a term of preventive detention that would put him behind bars indefinitely.
Vance Tuheke pleaded guilty before trial in August to one count of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, stemming from the attack, in July last year.
Tuheke became enraged during phonecalls to his former partner Elisha Brett, after she had a protection order served on him.
During one telephone conversation, he became aware that Ms Brett was with a man he incorrectly assumed was her new boyfriend.
He arrived at her home about 1.30am, armed with a knife, and approached her friend, Esley James, thrusting the blade toward his chest and throat.
During the ensuing struggle, Tuheke punched Mr James in the head and stabbed him in the face.
The knife blade entered Mr James' left cheek, cut through his sinus cavity and came to rest against his right eye socket.
The x-ray image of the embedded blade made national headlines.
The stabbing was not Tuheke's first.
In 1998, he was sentenced to two years in prison after stabbing an ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend as they slept.
The boyfriend was stabbed in the buttocks, groin and back. One of Tuheke's blows sliced through the man's lung and shoulder blade, and into the mattress beneath.
The terrified girlfriend was stabbed once as she tried to escape.
Tuheke's criminal history was enough for Justice Paul Heath to rule preventive detention was an option, when the 32-year-old digger driver appeared for sentencing in last month.
But Justice Heath also gave Tuheke a chance to change his guilty plea because of the sentencing possibility.
His lawyer, Geoff Anderson, made an application at the High Court at Auckland yesterday to have the guilty plea set aside.
The application was put on hold until next month, when court-ordered psychiatric reports are due to be completed.
The reports will help Justice Heath determine if preventive detention should be considered.
