Zyla Butler stabbed and punched a fellow tenant of the Ballinor Motel in a series of short attacks in November last year. Photo / Belinda Feek
A scrap at emergency accommodation left one tenant stabbed five times and the other with a fractured eye socket.
The stabber, Zyla Adonia Loudene Monilita Brittany Tigerlilly Butler, also punched the fellow tenant 26 times, later telling the court the victim had been “being messy” and that she did not like “messy b*****s”.
Butler accepted she should not have involved herself in a disturbance at Hamilton’s Ballinor Motel on November 10 last year, but said the victim had been yelling and calling people “crackheads”.
She told the court she began filming the woman on her phone, but after the victim slapped it from her hand, smashing it on the ground, she launched at her.
Butler appeared in the Hamilton District Court this week for a disputed facts hearing to determine how she received her injuries and whether they amounted to provocation, followed by her sentencing.
Having admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and injuring with intent to injure, Butler said she suffered a fractured eye socket, cuts to her hairline and under her eye, and a black eye.
She also told the court she underwent surgery to have a nasal plate inserted to “keep my eye up”.
The court heard the victim had been asleep in her unit when she was woken by a man remonstrating with the cleaner outside her front door.
She went out and asked the man to keep the noise down.
Butler then walked over to find out what was going on, threw a can of beer at the victim’s window and began verbally abusing her.
Butler pulled out her phone and began filming before the victim slapped it out of her hand, and it smashed on the ground.
Butler launched at her, chased her into her motel room and punched her 26 times in an attack that lasted about 90 seconds.
Shortly after, the victim emerged from the room with a bloody face and then went back inside.
Butler returned, ran back in, then left again.
When she returned a third time, she had a knife and lunged at the victim with it.
The victim locked herself in her bathroom, but Butler kicked it open and stabbed her again.
The victim managed to get out, running down her stairs and seeking help.
At the hearing, Butler was quizzed at length by Crown prosecutor Lexie Glaser.
There was much to and fro about whether she suffered her eye injury in the first or subsequent fight.
Butler said it was initially, while Glaser put to her that it must have been subsequently, as no injury to her face could be seen on the CCTV.
Glaser asked her why she attacked the victim.
“Because she was frustrating me,” Butler said.
“It was how I was being spoken to.”
Glaser said that Butler had made the conscious decision to get involved.
“Yes,” Butler replied. “I could have stayed in my flat and called police. But I didn’t.”
While Butler said she couldn’t recall how many times she punched the victim, she accepted it was 26.
Speaking to her injury, Butler claimed the victim stabbed her in the face with a knife, as she had one nearby on the internal stairs of her room.
Glaser put to her that the victim never had time to grab a knife.
“Well, I got hit in the face somehow,” Butler replied. “My eye was swollen shut. I couldn’t see out of it.”
Butler said the cut to her face couldn’t be seen in the initial footage due to its quality.
“I lived it,” Butler told Glaser. “You’re assuming it.”
Glaser asked if Butler was hit with that much force, why didn’t she stumble?
“Just adrenaline and wanting to fight,” she responded.
“You wanted to fight?” Glaser replied.
“Yeah.
“I’ve had my teeth kicked out before by an ex-partner and spat them back at him because it didn’t hurt at the time.
“I used to do boxing, so I’m used to getting whacks in the head.”
Counsel Philip Morgan, KC, said while the victim suffered five stab wounds, they were small, and the fifth was so small it didn’t require stitches.
He said the severity of the victim’s injuries and his client’s intent to injure her was already reflected in the charge and its maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.
“It’s wrong to say there’s a whole lot of aggravating features, like the wounds,” he said.
“These were little cuts, 2cm, and they were all to the extremities, arms and legs.”
Morgan said this was an “unfortunate altercation” to which the victim was also a contributor, and resulted in his client stabbing her.
He urged the judge to show some “compassion” to Butler and her “abysmal” history and upbringing.
“It’s pretty clear that this defendant is somebody to be pitied rather than to be classed, in extravagant terms, as being just plain evil.
“She has had an awful childhood, and her adulthood has been awful as well.
“The result of all of this is that she suffers from schizophrenia and delusional disorders.
“[She] had to resort to sex work to live. She lost her children ... she resorts to alcohol and drugs, but it turns out they diminish the effectiveness of the anti psychotic medication.”
Morgan said Butler didn’t go out looking for a fight that day.
“It blew up, spontaneously.
“But for the complainant rushing out and knocking the phone out of her hand, this would never have happened.”
Judge Gordon Matenga said it was necessary to discuss the facts before sentencing Butler, and found her evidence to be “illuminating and insightful”.
He said he couldn’t see any injury to her face after the first incident, but could see that an injury had developed after the stabbing.
“It’s possible that you could have been injured in that first incident and the injury only became evident later.
“In the end, the view I have taken is that it does not make much difference.”
The judge accepted that had the victim not slapped the phone out of Butler’s hand, it was possible the attack may not have occurred. However he found her reaction was “quite frankly, uncalled for and completely over the top”.
The victim received stitches for four of her stab wounds and remained in pain, wondering “how a person could do this to another human being”.
While Judge Matenga accepted Butler was open and forthcoming in questioning, “at no stage did I detect from you any acceptance of your responsibility here”.
He took a starting point of six and a half years’ imprisonment before allowing discounts of 40% for her plea, remorse and background.
Butler was then jailed for three years, 10 months and 24 days, and issued her first strike warning.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.