Paralysed man sentenced to home detention

Police cordon at the Intersection of State Highway 2 and Higginson Road, Otane where Police shot the offender. Photo / APN

A man left paralysed after he was shot by police in Central Hawke's Bay last year has been sentenced to home detention.

In a decision released earlier this month, Judge Brooke Gibson found David Andrew Taite, 49, guilty of threatening to kill the two police officers involved in the incident before he was shot.

Taite's claim he had threatened the officers only after being shot was rejected after a defended hearing was held in September.

At sentencing this morning, Napier District Court heard how the officers had feared for their lives at the time and the incident has since had a traumatic effect on them.

On October 20, 2011, Taite and his cousin were pulled over by police just outside Otane.

At the time he was wanted by police and they correctly suspected the passenger in the vehicle was Taite. He also had a known criminal history that included attempting to murder a police constable.

Becoming agitated, he got out of the vehicle and approached the officers. He had what later turned out to be a whiskey bottle in his pocket, which the officers thought was a firearm.

Despite police warning him they were armed and he should stop approaching them, he continued, saying he had a gun and was going to kill them. He was shot once.

As well as the two threatening to kill charges, he was sentenced on two burglary charges, one charge for unlawfully taking a motor vehicle and one charge of dangerous driving.

While he had a history of previous offending, he'd had no convictions in the past 11 years.

He received eight months' home detention and was disqualified from driving for six months.