‘He stood laughing with blood on his hands’

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A woman has likened her brother’s attacker, farmer David Bruce Morrison, to a worrying dog, preying on sheep.

In a victim statement read in Gisborne District Court at Morrison’s sentencing yesterday, the woman said Morrison should have been at home making memories with his children instead of driving 40 minutes to make nightmares for her brother’s family.

Supposedly a great husband, an amazing community member, and father of the year, Morrison was no role model for anyone. He was a bully whose violence needed to stop, she said.

After the attack, he had stood laughing with her brother’s blood on his hands.

It was not the first time he had offended that way the woman said, alluding to a 2017 incident in which Morrison assaulted a farm worker he accused of peeping at his wife.

People gave Morrison a chance after that but here he was right back asking for forgiveness, promising he was a changed man, she said.

“How many times do you give a dog a chance? You simply don’t and as a farmer you know that best,” the woman said.

“You’re cunning and all your victims are picked and you know the outcome before you attack and prey on the harmless,” she said.

No one wants a worrying dog in the community around their family, she said.

Her brother had lost everything he’d worked so hard to achieve and had not been able to work due to his injuries for the past two years — all because Morrison thought he would play judge and jury that night.

The repercussions of his attack on her brother had brought shame on Morrison’s family and continued to impact her family, the woman said.

Her brother’s children lost their father that night. She had watched him suffer depression, anxiety and sleeplessness. All 13 of their family had needed to play a huge role in his healing.

But they were told they might never see their brother return to his former fun-loving self. He was no longer that person who used to make friends wherever he went and fill a room with laughter.

She hoped in prison Morrison would come to understand the fear her brother now felt every time he walked down the street or was at home on his own, the woman said.