Jacob Komene, who served prison sentence for stabbing 95yo, agrees to post-release monitoring

Jacob Komene has been released from prison after serving nearly a decade behind bars for stabbing a 95-year-old in the face.

A recently released inmate with a history of knife attacks - including the stabbing of an elderly taxi driver in 2009 and the attack on a 95-year-old who was stabbed in the face three years later - will continue to be monitored with an extra three years of parole conditions.

Jacob Komene was sentenced in 2013 to nine years and eight months’ imprisonment for the attack on the 95-year-old, whose house he was burglarising. The 31-year-old’s release date was last month.

Corrections recently petitioned the High Court at Auckland for a five-year extended supervision order - the maximum allowed under the law. It came at the suggestion from the sentencing judge in 2013, who said Komeme was “very much on the edge of preventive detention”.

But during a recent hearing in which Komene fought the request, he and Corrections settled on a three-year term. In a judgement released to the Herald this week, Justice Andrew Becroft said it was the conclusion he also would have reached had the parties not reached the agreement on their own.

“All the evidence that I heard was that if he was receiving family support, external mental health support and kept taking his medication, and was otherwise properly supervised, the very high risks of him re-offending violently ... would be significantly reduced,” Becroft said, noting two psychological experts agreed the process would take at least three years.

“Mr Komene knows how important it is that he gets that help. So does his family.”

History of attacks

Despite only being 21 at his last sentencing in 2013, Komene had already amassed such a long list of offending he was being considered for preventative detention.

There were 32 prior convictions on his record dating back to when he was 15, including six for violent offending. He was convicted of assaulting a person with a blunt instrument in 2007, assault with a knife in 2008, and aggravated robbery - involving the stabbing of an elderly taxi driver - in 2009.

He spent the next three years in prison for the taxi stabbing, at which time he became affiliated with the Crips gang, and attacked again in April 2012 - less than a month after his release.

On that evening, he was confronted by 95-year-old resident Albert Chant after climbing through the window of a Glendene home he was trying to burglarise. He backed down from that confrontation, crawling back out through the window, but he remained in front of the house waving his knife around threateningly, according to court documents.

A short time later, Chant saw Komene had returned and activated his St John emergency alert button, causing an audible alarm. Komene rushed towards him, pushing his walking frame aside and stabbing him in the face with a 12cm blade followed by a punch to his head.

The 95-year-old spent five weeks in hospital recovering from a severed nerve and artery and a broken jaw.

Komene was charged with attempted murder, aggravated robbery and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, but the attempted murder charge was dropped after he pleaded guilty to the other charges.

“You told the probation officer that you take full responsibility for your actions and you are very remorseful and ashamed of the charges,” Justice Pamela Andrews noted during the 2013 sentencing. “You explained to the probation officer that you were high on drugs and alcohol at the time you attacked Mr Chant, and you simply panicked when you realised that someone was in fact home and you just attacked out of fear for your own safety.

“The pre-sentence report writer says that you did not impress as being remorseful for your offending, even when you found out that you had attacked a victim who is aged 95.”

During the sentencing, Justice Andrews was asked by prosecutors to consider indefinite detention due to the risk he posed to the community.

“I am concerned that there is a risk that if you are sentenced to a finite sentence you will simply ‘do the time’, and then come out of prison without having addressed any of the underlying causes of your offending and without having any strategies for dealing with the problems you encounter,” the judge said.

“If you fail to do this, if you fail to address the underlying causes of your offending, and if you fail to do something to develop strategies for dealing with problems, all of the experts have said that you are highly likely to re-offend in a similar violent manner. I have no doubt that the community needs to be protected from this.”

But the judge also took into account his young age, his troubled upbringing, the fact he had not previously served a lengthy prison sentence and the fact he’d never before been warned about the prospect of preventative detention. She denied the request, acknowledging it was a close call.

“However, I would expect that at the end of your sentence, an application will be made by the relevant authorities for you to be subject to an extended supervision order, for the maximum available period, so to ensure that you have support and some oversight by the authorities after your release,” she said.

Pattern of violence

During his hearing last week to contest the extended supervision order request, it was noted that Komene’s 2013 sentence was lengthened after an attack on an inmate in 2015 that led to new charges.

His latest disciplinary issues were in March and April 2021, when he was cited for having a razor and for medication stockpiling.

Justice Becroft heard from two clinical psychologists - Willem Louw, who was called by Corrections, and Hamish Bartle, who testified on behalf of the defence.

“On the face of it, Dr Louw and Dr Bartle were at odds,” Justice Becroft surmised. “Only Dr Louw described Mr Komene’s risk as ‘very high’. Dr Bartle described it only as ‘high’.

“When their evidence, however, is unpacked, and when the particular criminogenic tools that they used are explained, it seems to me that the differences were largely of a semantic nature. To maintain any difference between their views would be akin to dancing on the head of a pin.”

Becroft said there is no other way to describe Komene’s behaviour “other than it represents a pervasive, if not endemic, pattern of serious violent offending”.

“It was responsibly accepted by both counsel that he clearly has limited self-regulatory capacity,” Becroft said. “Part of the reason for that is because of his childhood ill-treatment; his profound fetal alcohol spectrum disorder; and also what is called his schizo-affective condition, which needs regular medication.”

But the judge also noted testimony and a report from Dr Bartle suggesting that positive signs were being shown by Komene towards the end of his prison sentence.

“He posited that there were grounds for hope, not yet tested, that in the community Mr Komene’s understanding and concern about the impact of his violence would act as a sufficiently protective factor, meaning that there was a low risk of further specified violent offending,” Becroft said.

“That, however, is an entirely optimistic and hopeful assessment. And, as I say, and as conceded by Dr Bartle, that assessment depends on the test of time.”

Justice Becroft took multiple opportunities to encourage Komene - who was initially opposed to any conditions at all - to consider accepting some of the parole-like conditions on his own accord.

“I’m going to give you the opportunity to make your own decision first”, taking into consideration whether the more rigid structure “might be better for you”, the judge said. “That’s what this is for - to protect the community and help you.”

There was room for Corrections to make a concession too, the judge said, pointing to testimony from both psychologists that three years would be the minimum time needed for his risk of reoffending to be reduced.

The law requires extended supervision orders to be the minimum time required for the safety of the community, the judge noted.

The supervision period will begin next month.