Chad Erueti was jailed after hitting his ex-partner with his car. Photo / 123rf
After turning up at his former partner’s house unwanted, and repeatedly being asked to leave, Chad Lionel Erueti eventually drove off in his car.
He got to the end of the road, turned around and drove into his former partner, pinning her against a retaining wall.
It left the woman fearing she was going to die, and living in fear.
She was now anxious all the time and hardly slept, worried that Erueti would turn up again.
“I don’t feel like I can ever relax for fear of something bad happening.
“There’s nothing really to stop him from just showing up ... he’s done it before.”
The assault was the latest and most serious in a series of violent incidents Erueti has notched up over the past 10 years, leaving a frustrated judge asking; “What is it that will make Mr Erueti stop harming people?”.
The 39-year-old appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing last week for breaching a protection order, intentional damage, driving while disqualified and assault with a weapon - a car.
On the morning of December 9, last year, Erueti texted the victim and said he was heading to her Tokoroa home.
He arrived about 40 minutes later, and was told to leave multiple times by the victim.
The pair argued and got to the point where an angry Erueti started kicking the back of the victim’s car, causing damage.
He then got into his car and drove to the end of the street and stopped.
Erueti then turned around and drove back up the victim’s driveway, but didn’t slow down.
He aimed the car at the victim, and she turned, thinking it’d be better to have broken legs than a broken back.
The vehicle hit her, causing her to be pinned by the back of her legs between the car and a retaining wall.
In her statement read by the judge, the victim said the whole right side of her body was sore after Erueti “smashed” into her.
Even now, if she did too much, she would get sore.
“A lot of things I still can’t do,” she said.
“I thought I was going to die. The only thing that kept me going was my children.”
Erueti’s counsel, Mitchell Stuthridge, said as his client didn’t have a suitable property for home detention, jail was currently the only option.
However, he urged the judge to grant leave to allow him the option of applying if he did find one.
But Judge Tini Clark was struggling to see how she could get to the home detention threshold of 24 months, given Erueti had been jailed in 2021 for “almost identical” offending.
Stuthridge pointed to Erueti’s background and childhood, and the fact that the victim didn’t suffer serious injuries.
Judge Clark remained unconvinced before a police prosecutor pointed out that it was the same victim.
Stuthridge held firm, seeking home detention so that he could complete the rehabilitative Tai Aroha programme.
Judge Clark told Erueti it was important the victim’s impact statement was read out to the court so people could hear about “the long-term negative effects on this family and everyone is suffering because of you, Mr Erueti, and the choices that you made”.
As for Erueti’s letter to the court, Judge Clark said it mainly revolved around him rather than the harm he’d caused others.
“There’s only so much weight I can give to Mr Erueti’s background when he has so often victimised others.
“Mr Erueti has an unimpressive history of violence.
“I am now told that the set of offending from 2021 refers to the same victim, and that simply makes things worse.”
Over the past 10 years, Erueti had been arrested in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024.
“And here we are today ... this is the worst offending so far.”
The judge was quick to rule out home detention as an option.
“This offending is far too significant for that,” she said.
Erueti also had an ongoing series of non-compliance with protection orders.
“None of this should have happened.
“It’s only by good luck than anything else, that the victim was not more significantly hurt.
“I add to that just how deliberate it was.
“It was not an accident or anything close to an accident and really does beg the question, ‘what is it that will stop Mr Erueti from harming other people’?.”
In jailing him for 28 and a half months, Judge Clark told him he hoped it would be a wake-up call.
“There’s just no way that anything can change in your life unless you do the mahi.”
Erueti was also disqualified from driving for six months.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.