A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A five-year-old boy stood screaming in fear as his father stormed about their house throwing items, pushing the boy’s mother, and whipping her with an extension cord.
The woman had just arrived home from her nightshift work and had cooked breakfast for her son and partner. The man refused to
eat his so the woman fed it to her dog.
The man’s rage continued with him standing over the woman, throwing her food over a couch and a wall, then grabbing her phone.
When she tried to get the phone back, the man threw her onto a mattress, brandished a chair at her, then threw the chair at a wall putting a hole in it. He picked up other items and threw them at the woman while she was on the phone to police. Then he waved an extension cord at her and whipped her with it once. The couple’s son was screaming throughout. The man went to leave the house, kicking the woman as she lay on the ground. Outside, he found a pot and threw it through a window in her car. When police arrived, the man refused to say anything about the incident.
The man, whose name is withheld to protect his son’s identity, was sentenced recently in Gisborne District Court to three months community detention and 12 months intensive supervision. He had pleaded guilty to charges arising from the incident on December 10 last year — assault with a blunt instrument, assault on someone within a family relationship, and two charges of wilful damage.
