Attempted murder in Napier: Man stabbed his ex 15 times in parked car

Ellison St in Napier as police investigated the stabbing on March 21 this year. Photo / File

A man who stabbed his former girlfriend at least 15 times in Napier just two months after being released from a jail term imposed for another assault on the woman has pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Jordan Peter Rawiri Nuku, 35, made the admission when he appeared before Justice Jan-Marie Doogue in the High Court at Napier on Tuesday. He was remanded in custody for sentencing on March 5.

The attack happened late on the sunny Saturday morning of March 21 this year as the woman sat in a car outside Te Awa Dairy, near the intersection of Ellison St and Georges Dr, Napier South.

A Crown summary, prepared for what was to have been a sentence-indication hearing, said Nuku and the woman had been in a relationship for about 10 years and had a 5-year-old daughter. A "final" protection order had been issued in September 2019, five weeks after Nuku went to jail for assaulting the woman and breaching an earlier order.

Nuku was released on January 13 this year, and there was some phone and social media contact between the two but no face-to-face contact between him and the mother and daughter leading up to the day of the incident.

On the day of the attack, Nuku drove with his niece from Hastings to Napier and stopped after seeing the mother's vehicle parked outside the dairy.

Nuku parked in nearby Chambers St and walked about 80-100 metres towards his former partner's vehicle, saw her at the wheel, opened the front passenger door and lunged across the vehicle's interior, repeatedly stabbing the woman. The vehicle was seen in CCTV images to be rocking as the blows continued for about 40 seconds.

At least 15 wounds to the torso and neck were inflicted before Nuku stopped as the woman opened her door and fell on to the road.

Passersby went to her aid as Nuku ran off and fled the area in the vehicle he had arrived in, while the injured woman was rushed to hospital in Hastings, where she remained in the Intensive Care Unit for several days, undergoing two surgeries.

Nuku was found two days later hiding in the boot of a vehicle driven by a girlfriend, and was heard to say to a friend who approached a police vehicle as he waited after being arrested: "I was out driving with my niece and I saw her, I just lost it, I snapped."

Although admitting to police that he had stabbed the woman, he said he had not taken a knife to the scene and the weapon was a knife he had taken off the woman.