Work function in Queenstown ended with brutal assault for Auckland man

The Queenstown District Court hears the father of four was flown to Southland Hospital for surgery and spent four weeks in hospitals in Invercargill and Auckland. Photo / Ross Setford, File

One of four victims of serious assault by a Queenstown man told his attacker it was the worst day of his life.

The Aucklander was returning to his hotel in the resort town after attending his company’s awards evening on February 24 when a punch in the head from Zane Fitzgerald Brown, 23, knocked him to the ground.

Speaking directly to Fitzgerald Brown in the Queenstown District Court yesterday, the 57-year-old said he briefly lost consciousness before coming to and seeing his colleague “having the s*** kicked out of him”.

Unable to stand, he looked down to see his ankle bone “snapped in half, poking out of my skin, and blood everywhere”.

The father of four, who was flown to Southland Hospital for surgery, spent four weeks in hospitals in Invercargill and Auckland for treatment for ankle, knee and head injuries.

Now waiting for surgery on his knee, which would keep him off work for another three months, he told Fitzgerald Brown he was in court to tell him about the physical and mental pain he had caused him and his family.

However, he wished him the best for his future.

“You’re still young, and you can change your life around.”

Fitzgerald Brown was sentenced on charges of wounding with reckless disregard, injuring with intent to injure, and two charges of assault in relation to the February incident.

He was also sentenced on a charge of sustained loss of traction in the resort on February 11.

The police summary said the defendant became involved in an altercation in Camp St, punching the first victim in the head four times and knocking him to the ground.

He then punched the second victim in the head, causing him to fall, then punched him a second time as lay on the ground.

Fitzgerald Brown then chased the two men, with several associates following, along Camp St.

In Shotover St, the third victim tried to help the men by speaking to the defendant, but was punched in the face.

The defendant then punched the fourth victim seven times in the head before he was pulled away by an associate.

The fourth victim was taken to Lakes District Hospital with bruised ribs and an eye injury.

Judge Russell Walker said a pre-sentence report stated Fitzgerald had been in a “dark place” as a result of the recent deaths of two family members.

He had come to Queenstown from the Coromandel, where he had grown up with an alcoholic mother and an absent father.

Although he knew little of the defendant’s background, there were no excuses for his actions, Judge Walker said.

The attacks were unprovoked, directed at the head, and included a “cowardly” assault on a man on the ground.

“You and your friends were acting aggressively, and spoiling for a fight with anyone who was about.”

There was already too much “wanton, gratuitous violence in Queenstown in the early hours of the morning”.

Giving the defendant credit for his early guilty pleas and relative youth, he came to a term of imprisonment of 21 months, which he converted to 10 months’ home detention at a Hawke’s Bay address.

He ordered Fitzgerald Brown to pay $1000 emotional harm reparation to his third victim and $500 to his fourth victim.