French tourist Ulysse Felician has failed to avoid a conviction over an incident near Nelson where he tried to take a taser from the police and bit two officers.
French tourist Ulysse Felician has failed to avoid a conviction over an incident near Nelson where he tried to take a taser from the police and bit two officers.
An unlicensed French driver who performed a U-turn in front of oncoming traffic became agitated when he was pulled over by police, lunging at officers and biting them as he was arrested.
The driving incident near Nelson earlier this year led to a series of charges being laid against UlysseFelician, who went on to seek a discharge without conviction.
However, the 30-year-old teacher was convicted of the charges after Judge Noel Sainsbury today declined his application.
Felician, who wanted to remain in New Zealand where he hoped to teach physical education, now faced deportation.
Judge Sainsbury said in sentencing Felician in the Nelson District Court that he did not see a conviction would prohibit him from remaining in New Zealand, but that would be a decision for immigration authorities.
“He may be the subject of a deportation order, regardless of what happens today. It will be up to Immigration New Zealand to make an assessment of his character and whether this was a one-off stupid piece of behaviour that doesn’t reflect who he is,” the judge said.
None of what happened would have resulted in more than a warning if Felician had stopped and spoken civilly to the police, the judge said.
Instead, he continued to drive off, and to make matters worse, bit two police officers while restrained.
Judge Noel Sainsbury said in sentencing a French tourist in the Nelson District Court that he did not see a conviction would prohibit him remaining in New Zealand. Photo / Tracy Neal
Defence lawyer Emma Riddell said the incident was out of character and the result of Felician being tired and burnt out to the point he reacted in an “emotionally unstable way”.
“He was hard working and living a good life until this day. He has a lot going for him, aside from this one incident that escalated,” Riddell said.
Felician, 30, was in the country on a tourist working visa, which his lawyer said during his plea appearance in April had expired.
The court heard that matters had unravelled for Felician on the morning of January 28 this year.
He was driving a grey Mazda station wagon on State Highway 6 in Appleby when he was seen by police doing a U-turn in front of oncoming traffic.
It ended with him being taken to the ground before he bit two police officers and then tried to remove a taser from the holster of one.
According to a police summary of facts, he didn’t hold a driver’s licence. However, Judge Sainsbury said Felician did have a French driver’s licence.
Turning point for tourist
After Felician was seen doing the U-turn, police signalled to him to stop, but he did another U-turn near a busy intersection and headed off in a different direction.
He stopped briefly just past Appleby Primary School on the Moutere Highway but then drove off as an officer got out of their patrol vehicle.
Felician stopped further up the road but then drove off again before he stopped a third time on Waimea West Rd, when the police removed the keys from his vehicle.
He later told the police he did not remember fighting the officers involved but wanted to apologise to those he had hit.
Felician said he was not a violent person but reacted to being restrained and didn’t understand what was happening.
He went on to plead guilty to assaulting and resisting police, failing to remain stopped, and a drug charge after a search of his vehicle found 25.5g of dried cannabis.
The police opposed Felician’s application for a discharge without conviction and said a “strong message” needed to be sent that there were laws in this country that the police stood by, and the court should not downplay that.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Malcolm York said Felician needed to be held to account.
York said the Frenchman’s recollections in an affidavit in support of his application were “far from what the summary of facts said” and the photos of the officers’ injuries on file.
“The police stand by the fact this was serious offending. It put the officers at risk and other road users at risk.”
Felician was convicted and fined $250 on each of the two charges of assaulting police and two charges of resisting police and failing stop.
On the charge of possession of cannabis, he was discharged without conviction.
Judge Sainsbury said there was a danger of that being “disproportionately punitive”.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
