Man jailed for vicious assault on relative

File photo / NZ Herald

A Kumara Junction man who viciously assaulted a relative, and then tried to bite, racially abused and spat at police was yesterday sent to jail for one year and three months.

Cody Allyn Robinson, 28, was sentenced in the Greymouth District Court on charges of assault with a weapon, assaulting police, intentionally damaging his relative's car and threatening behaviour.

On February 6, Robinson got into an argument with a relative over him doing 'burnouts' on the driveway of the house where Robinson lived with his parents, who were away at the time.

Robinson told the eight-year-old daughter of his relative that the girl's father was a "faggoty homo" and that if he called the police he would "bash him".

Upon hearing this, the relative, who lived a couple of hundred metres away, drove over to Robinson's house to verbally confront him. Robinson responded by repeatedly bashing him over the head with an empty bottle, leaving him covered in blood and with cuts and swelling to the back of his head.

After police were called, Robinson abused them and resisted arrest. After headbutting the back window of the police car he was bundled into the vehicle, where he tried to bite one of the officers and tried to spit at him.

Further problems emerged on September 2, when a car in which Robinson was travelling was stopped by police. During sentencing yesterday, Judge Tony Couch said police were trying to speak to the driver and Robinson became abusive, approaching the police officers with clenched fists, threatening one, racially abusing another and spitting at them.

Lawyer Richard Bodle urged the judge to delay sentencing. Despite having made two previous unsuccessful attempts to find an address suitable for home detention, Robinson's lawyer asked if two new addresses could be assessed by Community Corrections.

However, Judge Couch refused: "There must come an end to the process, and the end is today."

Mr Bodle said Robinson accepted "he may have painted himself into a corner" by not finding a suitable home detention address.

The judge said he considered the assault with a "hard and reasonably weighty" weapon as the lead charge, and that the "gravity of the offending was way up the scale". He also gave "significant weight" to Robinson's criminal history, which encompassed eight offences of assault, and one of assault with intent to injure since 2008.

In total, Robinson was sentenced to 12 months for the assault with a weapon charge, with an extra three months for the other charges.

Judge Couch said he could not consider home detention as no suitable address was available. However, Robinson would be given leave to apply for a substitution of his prison sentence in the future.