A teenager who stabbed a Whangarei taxi driver in the back of the neck with a sharpened screwdriver was yesterday jailed for six years.
Roger Herewini Matthews, 19, admitted wounding with intent to rob, aggravated robbery, and unlawfully taking a vehicle.
In the Whangarei District Court, Judge Arthur Tompkins said serious violence had been used in the January 2 robbery, and serious injury was caused.
Defence counsel Lucy Postlewaight said Matthews' background included a lack of role models, poverty, instability, and poor communication skills.
She asked that his prison sentence not be so long that he forgot the things he needed to remember upon his release.
Judge Tompkins said the crime happened after Matthews picked up a sharpened screwdriver while walking along, and formed an intent to rob a taxi driver.
In that sense there was premeditation, the judge said.
Matthews had phoned for a taxi cab, and then during the trip in the vehicle had stabbed the driver in the back of the neck with the screwdriver.
"This was done with enough force so that the screwdriver penetrated the victim's neck for two inches (50mm)."
After a struggle the taxi driver was able to leave, and Matthews drove off in the taxi at high speed until he crashed and rolled the vehicle.
As well as a report on the impact of the incident on the taxi driver, there was one on the woman and two young children who had been at the house where the driver went for help, Judge Tompkins said.
He sentenced Matthews to six years prison on both the robbery charge and the wounding charge, and to two years for unlawfully taking the vehicle. The terms are concurrent.
- NORTHERN ADVOCATE
Man gets six years jail for screwdriver stabbing
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