Black Power member jailed after gang rival run down

Jamie Lesley Jones was sentenced by Judge Geoff Rea to one year and 10 months in jail at Napier District Court yesterday. Photo/File

A gang member who drove over a rival patch-wearer after a dispute over gang territory in Napier did not intend to hurt the victim, a judge said as he sentenced the driver in Napier District Court yesterday.

Black Power Hawke's Bay member Jamie Lesley Jones, 32, pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon, namely a Mitsubishi Legnum station.

Mongrel Mob member Louis Keil, 49 at the time, received multiple fractures as Jones reversed his vehicle over him. Jones told police he only meant to scare Keil and thought he would get out of the way.

Keil spent about three months in hospital and was expected to have a permanent limp.

Jones, a disqualified driver and on bail awaiting hearing of another charge of driving while disqualified, drove off and was not arresteduntil more than three weeks later.

Yesterday, Judge Geoff Rea sentenced him to one year and 10 months in jail, saying he accepted "it wasn't intentional".

The charge had a maximum available penalty of five years. The court heard the two men did not know each other when Jones arrived at an address in Waterworth Ave to collect his daughter.

But Keil emerged from a neighbouring address, confronted Jones about "being in Mob territory", and chased him from the property.

Jones left, drove around the block and was returning for a second attempt to collect the child, saw Keil cycling, stopped, reversed and ran over him.

Defence counsel Nicola Graham said Jones was remorseful, and was interested in a restorative justice meeting, but the court considered that was unlikely to happen. Jones has eight previous convictions for driving while disqualified or while a licence was revoked or suspended, including when driving a stolen vehicle in a mainly slow-speed and down-to-the-rims late-night chase lasting more than an hour in March last year.