Robbie Richards
A Napier man with more than 100 convictions faces up to 14 more years in jail for running down and seriously injuring a police officer at a booze-bus checkpoint.
Robert James (Robbie) Richards, 29, had denied a charge of wounding Constable Adam Blummont with intent to cause grievous bodily harm early in the morning of December 19 last year, but yesterday a jury deliberated for just over two hours before finding him guilty at the end of a three-day-trial in Napier District Court. The constable, who broke a leg and was concussed, had four months off work and is back at work on light duties, had since married and was in court with his wife to hear the verdict, but declined to comment further than the evidence he had given during the trial.
Judge Bridget Mackintosh remanded Richards in continued custody until January 28 for sentence on the charge and another he admitted as the trial began on Monday.
The court had been told Mr Blummont was knocked over in Farndon Rd, Clive, about 12.30 on a Sunday morning as wanted man Richards apparently tried to avoid a checkpoint a short distance away on State Highway 2.
Wanted on unrelated matters, Richards drove off and wasn't found until the Sunday evening, although the car and a passenger were found soon after the incident.
The officer and others at the checkpoint gave evidence, but Richards did not, counsel Scott Jefferson yesterday arguing in his closing address that the Crown had not established beyond reasonable doubt that Richards was the driver, or had he been that he deliberately drove at Constable Blummont to cause the injuries.
Mr Jefferson questioned the evidence of car passenger Alana Mumby, the only person to say they had seen Richards driving - one of three accounts she gave, which included telling police she was the driver.
He said the Crown had "cherry-picked" from the versions available.
But Crown prosecutor Rebecca Guthrie said there was "layer upon layer" of evidence pointing to Richards, and what he did to the officer, who had set-up beside a lamp-post, in uniform with fluorescent jacket, beside his unmarked patrol car with the engine running was "very deliberate and callous".
In his evidence, Mr Blummont recalled the incident, saying he thought: "This is it, I'm dying."
At the start of the trial, Richards had pleaded guilty to a charge of wilful damage, for throwing stones at a woman's car when she refused to let him into her home after he yelled: "Hurry up and open the door. I've just run over a pig."
One of Richards' first appearances in a Hawke's Bay court was as a 17-year-old being sentenced to 10 months' jail in 2003 for offences including robbing a 91-year-old woman of a handbag as she pushed a supermarket trolley in the Taradale shopping centre.
The judge sentencing him at that time said it was "mean, cowardly offending".
Over the years he had become a member of Black Power and had the insignia tattooed on his cheek.