A man who choked a Middlemore Hospital nurse until he was nearly unconscious was in the emergency department for injuries incurred hours earlier after ramming the gate of Auckland’s ornate new Mormon temple and punching out windows.
The church and hospital incidents, both bizarre and violent, would mark Jacob Mataia’s second and third run-ins with police that week.
A full account of what occurred that day – including an aborted attempt to strangle a doctor as well – can now be reported following the 23-year-old Weymouth resident’s sentencing this week to 10 months’ home detention.
“It doesn’t take any imagination to appreciate that the nurse ... would have suffered shock, disbelief and fear, and loss of trust in dealing with patients generally after having undergone the experience which he suffered,” Manukau District Court Judge Ian Carter told the defendant, noting that the victims were not present and there were no recent impact statements for him to review.
Police prosecutors had sought imprisonment, but the judge said Mataia’s “relative youth”, remorse and openness to rehabilitation made a non-custodial sentence the most appropriate.
Court documents suggest Mataia’s first interaction with police that week was just before sunrise on January 4, when he ran into a traffic light directly in front of the Manukau Police Station.
When officers spoke to him, they described him as appearing confused.
“I can’t remember anything that happened before I crashed,” he said. “I had no idea that I crashed. I just want to go home and sleep.”
He had been charged five months earlier with drink driving in Auckland Central after an extraordinarily high alcohol reading, the judge noted. This time, he was charged with driving carelessly.
Two days later, at 12.30am, he arrived at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints complex, not too far from the crash at the police station. He was driving a different car as he smashed through the entry barrier.
“The impact destroyed the gates, causing them to fly off their hinges attached to the structural poles holding them up,” the agreed summary of facts states.
He then drove to the front of the church and parked beside the main entry.
“He began punching, elbowing and head-butting the door using both fists, his feet and head,” documents state. “This caused the glass panes on the door to smash.”
Mataia was still in a frenzy at the front door when police arrived and took him into custody. He was charged with intentional damage.
At 3pm that same day, a male nurse at Middlemore Hospital was dressing one of Mataia’s wounds when – without provocation or warning – the defendant pulled the nurse close and wrapped his legs around the stranger, trapping him.
“The defendant then wrapped his forearm around the victim’s neck and squeezed tightly, resulting in the victim having trouble breathing and causing blurry vision,” court documents state.
Mataia also punched the nurse in the head about five times before other staff intervened and he released his grip. He then began to chase other medical staff, authorities said.
“The defendant then grabbed a second victim around the neck, however other staff intervened quickly and held the defendant down,” documents state. “Hospital security subdued the defendant and he was sedated due to his erratic and aggressive behaviour.”
Three new charges were added to the growing list: assault of the nurse with intent to injure, impeding breathing and common assault of the second victim, a doctor.
Defence lawyer Gaye Gurnick asked the judge during this week’s hearing for a sentence of community detention paired with intensive supervision – an option considered less restrictive than home detention.
“Intoxication is clearly driving the offending,” she said, describing her client as having been “extremely intoxicated” during the hospital incident.
But since his arrest, she said, Mataia has been “open and honest” about the personal issues that led to alcohol abuse and has “made some positive changes in his life”.
She noted that her client had already spent two months in custody and four months breach-free on electronically monitored bail, which she said should already satisfy the punitive element of any sentence.
“I think Mr Mataia and the community will be better served by a sentence that is rehabilitative-focused,” Gurnick said.
While a non-custodial sentence was preferable, community detention would be a step too far, Judge Carter later decided.
“It’s clear that you had a difficult upbringing, including some violence and poverty and a lack of support at key times,” the judge said.
“You [now] have a positive attitude and willingness and motivation to engage in any steps to address your previous trauma and offending-related factors, which include alcohol use, a tendency to use violence and a lack of thinking through consequences while under the influence of alcohol.”
The Middlemore Hospital incident, which happened roughly a week after a nurse in Rotorua was stabbed while on a house call, sparked outrage among some in the healthcare sector and a debate over whether measures to protect medical staff were adequate.
Security staff were usually present in Middlemore’s ED but had been called to a different part of the hospital when Mataia lashed out, a source previously told Kaitiaki, a publication operated by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation.
The source said the attack had left staff traumatised and afraid.
At the time, Minister of Health Shane Reti described such violence as “unacceptable” and said hospital staff deserved to feel safe at their work. He noted that the Government had already prioritised funding for extra security in eight “high-risk” EDs, including Middlemore.
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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