The man responsible, Simon Terence Hamiora Kereopa, was today jailed for the incident, his ninth conviction against the victim during their 20-year-plus relationship.
‘That’s what you get’
The pair, together with the victim’s sister, had drunk “a large amount” of alcohol during the evening of Friday, February 3, last year.
By 3.30am, Kereopa, 41, and the victim began arguing over past and present issues and the trauma they’ve experienced together over time.
Due to the level of aggression being displayed by Kereopa, the victim rang a friend who lived about 15 minutes away to ask her to come and pick her up.
The arguing became more intense, and in the past when their arguing had reached that intensity, she usually ended up receiving a physical beating.
As they argued in the kitchen, the victim recalled the jug boiling.
Kereopa then dragged her outside through the kitchen door by her arms, down the kitchen steps and onto the ground.
He then grabbed the kettle, which was just inside the door, and poured the boiling water over the victim - who was naked at the time - directly onto her skin.
As he did so, Kereopa told her “you deserve it, and that’s what you get”.
He then told her he would reboil the jug and pour it on her face.
She ran to seek help from her sister but she was asleep, before running into her daughter’s room and hugging her.
Kereopa then went into the room and said, “once you let go, I’m burning your face”.
However, at that time, the victim’s friend arrived and the victim ran out of the house, jumped over a fence and into the friend’s car.
Between having cold showers and swimming in her friend’s pool, she slept until 3.30pm that day.
She was taken to the Anglesea Accident and Emergency Clinic on the morning of February 5 before being transferred to Waikato Hospital for urgent medical help.
She suffered burns to 12 per cent of her body including her upper left leg, the back of her shoulders and neck, and left arm.
Kereopa’s counsel Charles Bean told Judge Stephen Clark there was a “wealth of information” in various reports he’d handed up, including a Section 27 cultural report.
‘This was degrading’
Judge Clark said the victim’s injuries were serious, requiring her to be “scrubbed down and debrided”, with her burnt skin being removed and dressed again.
He’d seen photos of the burns which showed the skin peeling off her left upper thigh and bubbling on her back.
He also noted Kereopa’s 17 family violence convictions, eight of which were against the current victim.
There was also a theme running through the reports he had read about Kereopa, which was his alcoholism, but he acknowledged his dysfunctional upbringing which also involved neglect, poor family role models, and “poor to little schooling”.
Before sending him to jail, Judge Clark said although he didn’t know if the victim was still his partner, either way, she did not deserve to be treated like that and being drunk was no excuse.
“You know this particular set of facts was degrading. Dragging her naked outside and pouring boiling hot water over her, whether you were drunk or not.”
On a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to injure, Kereopa was jailed for three years and one month.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.
