A 501 deportee with a history of hearing voices and paranoid thoughts when using methamphetamine has been sentenced to prison for two separate violent attacks on Auckland bus drivers.
Carl Leu’s first attack, during the Christmas holiday period two years ago, prompted the driver to leave his job after suffering a broken tooth and fractured eye socket, among other injuries.
“Because of what you did to him, he has become more suspicious of other people,” Judge Stephen Bonnar said this week as the defendant returned to an Auckland District Court dock for sentencing.
“He doesn’t feel safe anymore around other people.”
The victim was especially vulnerable, the judge said, because he was “just going about his job”.
“People doing that service need to be protected.”
The defendant was ordered to serve two years’ imprisonment, although his lawyer noted that he is likely to be released soon when calculating the credit he will receive for time already spent in jail waiting for the cases to be resolved.
Leu faced up to five years’ imprisonment for the December 28, 2023, attack, which occurred immediately after he forced his way through the front door as the bus travelled along Jervois Rd in Ponsonby.
Just under four months later, Leu was free on bail and again in Ponsonby when he attacked another driver, resulting in a charge of male assaults female.
Accounts of what happened on that occasion have varied.
Police reported at the time that the attacker lashed out, punching and kicking the driver, after she asked him to exit the bus for not paying his fare. The then-39-year-old ran off but police caught up with him a short distance later.
“It is completely unacceptable,” Inspector Dave Christoffersen said at the time, describing the incident as an appalling act of violence.
Police also reported initially that Leu spat on the driver and punched her hard enough in the chest to knock her back into her seat, but those details were omitted from the summary of facts that Leu agreed to.
The court was told during his sentencing hearing that it was Leu who demanded to get off the bus immediately after hearing voices and believing the police were watching him. He said he thought at the time that he was being trapped on the bus.
“You began kicking the door and screaming to get off,” the judge said, noting that the driver complied “but you put your hand around and grabbed her by the neck ... and you squeezed”.
Leu was given bail again four days later. Six months after that, he was arrested again - this time for burglary and obstructing police after he used a concrete block to smash the glass door of a bar and gaming lounge.
The burglary alarm went off as he went inside the business, but that didn’t deter him from grabbing bottles of alcohol from the kitchen and then sitting down at the front of the lounge to drink them. When police arrived, he threw one of the bottles at an officer but missed, smashing a glass window instead.
His final arrest was in March this year, after police found a small amount of methamphetamine in his pocket.
Defence lawyer Alex Slipper noted that it took some time to resolve the charges because his client needed to be assessed for mental health issues.
Although it’s clear he does have such issues, Leu was deemed competent to stand trial, he noted.
Leu had no criminal history in New Zealand, but Slipper acknowledged his client’s history overseas was extensive. He had moved to Australia at age 4 but was deported back to New Zealand in 2015 due to his criminal record, which included a stint in prison when he was 18 years old.
“He would like to express his remorse for his [current] offending,” Slipper said. “He’s been thinking very deeply about the harm he’s caused to other people.”
Judge Bonnar said he wasn’t entirely sure the sentiment was genuine, given the defendant’s remarks to a probation officer in an interview ahead of sentencing.
“You said you weren’t sure if you were sorry about that [first bus driver attack],” the judge noted, describing the comments as “a little bit concerning” and bordering on victim blaming.
But on the other hand, the judge noted, Leu did reflect that he shouldn’t have punched the driver and “went a bit overboard”.
A psychological report provided to the judge noted that Leu’s mental health issues in recent years have been due to extended alcohol and drug use.
Judge Bonnar ordered a 22-month starting point for the first bus driver attack, adding six months for the subsequent attack and four months for the other charges that came later.
He then allowed eight months in combined discounts for Leu’s guilty pleas and for his difficult childhood and mental health issues, resulting in the two-year sentence.
The judge urged Leu to work with probation to maximise his rehabilitation efforts upon release.
“You need to stay off the meth,” he advised. “Because all your problems seem to come from the drugs.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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