'Chaotic, nonsensical' attack leads to jail

A man sent to prison for attacking Dutch campers at Matauri Bay with a baseball bat but managing to steal only a frying pan had harmed the travellers, the community and New Zealand's reputation.

That's what Judge John McDonald told Leroy Thompson in the Kaikohe Court last Thursday when he gave him a three-year and 10-month prison sentence for aggravated robbery.

Judge McDonald said the sentence needed to be "truly deterrent or this country will continue to suffer from these kinds of attacks".

Thompson's crime was described by his own lawyer Grant Anson and Crown prosecutor Moana Jarman-Taylor as chaotic and nonsensical.

On March 13, about 8.30pm, he had approached the Dutch couple's camper van at Matauri Bay and chatted with them. During the conversation he told them it was all right for them to park there.

Thompson and another person returned about three hours later, carrying a baseball or similar bat. Thompson yelled at the tourists, who were inside the van, to leave. He then wrenched a window open, poked the bat inside, waved it around and demanded money.

He hit the male tourist a glancing blow before the man grabbed the bat and dashed outside, where he saw another person standing there watching. The tourist hit that person with the bat and in the ensuing confusion, when Thompson went to the other's aid, the couple jumped in the vehicle and drove off.

Thompson took a frying pan the fleeing tourists had left on the ground, and which was later found at his address by police.

"You did, in my view, plan this incident to try to extract money or belongings," Judge McDonald told Thompson.

"A blow was struck. These were vulnerable people. Unfortunately in Northland this is not an isolated incident, it happens too often."

During the hearing the Crown called for the crime to be treated as a home invasion because the tourists were living in the vehicle while in New Zealand. Mr Anson argued that a vehicle parked in a public place was not a home.

Judge McDonald likened Thompson's action to that of a street robber, and it was not home invasion.