A Tauranga man assaulted by a woman he confronted over “dangerous” parking says he can’t sleep on his left side, due to pain in his face, and has ongoing nerve damage to his left hand.
Russell Watts told the court this causes a struggle in his “everyday life” as he’s left-handed.
“I can’t even carry a coffee around,” the 63-year-old said in a victim impact statement.
Watts was assaulted by 32-year-old Rotorua woman Stevee Ormsby, who was found guilty after a judge-alone trial earlier this year.
At the trial, the court heard that Watts regularly took photos of illegally parked cars on his street in Maungatapu and sent them to the council, as he was worried about cars parking on broken yellow lines.
Ormsby had been running late for rugby practice at Te Wati Park on April 2, 2024, when she parked in a way that concerned Watts.
During his evidence, Watts said people often parked there, near a tight bend, and it was an “accident waiting to happen”.
He took photos before walking over to confront her.
She claimed that all she did was push him back as he walked towards her “aggressively”, but the judge did not find her account “reliable or credible”.
At sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Melinda Mason said Watts walked towards Ormsby to confront her, and she “grabbed him by the neck and assaulted him on the left side of the head”.
He’d fallen to the ground, blacked out momentarily, and couldn’t remember much of what happened next, but awoke with several injuries and saw Ormsby driving off without checking if he was okay.
Judge Mason said Watts suffered injuries that included a “significant dent in his head that certainly was not consistent with your version of events that he somehow fell and got that trauma to his head in the process of him attacking you and you defending yourself”.
The judge said she “squarely rejected” Ormsby’s account.
Watts’ victim impact statement, read by police prosecutor Senior Sergeant Tina Smallman, said after the assault, he had been suffering “lots of anxiety” and was “always scared”.
“I’ve been too afraid to leave my home. I have only left my house once to go to the doctors.”
He has nerve damage to his left hand and lower back, and the skin on his hand has “pigmentation and has white spots all over it”.
He listed the financial costs for treatment and medications, including needing to see a “private specialist” for treatment to his face because of his age.
However, Judge Mason queried whether these costs were covered by ACC, and Senior Sergeant Smallman confirmed they were. The only reparation sought was for emotional harm.
Ormsby maintained her innocence, and the judge noted there had been no apology, nor “any courses or any community work” that could be taken into account.
Ormsby’s lawyer had sought a discharge without conviction, owing to Ormsby’s qualification as a chartered accountant, and her desire to work in that industry again in the future.
While she had taken a break from that career path, it was one she hoped to return to, but with a conviction, she risked failing the “fit and proper person” test applied by the chartered accountant regulatory organisation.
However, Judge Mason said in her view, professional bodies “are there for that very reason to undertake the function of determining whether you are a fit and proper person to be a chartered accountant”.
That was where that assessment should take place, and she did not think the consequences of a conviction outweighed the gravity of the offending, “particularly when nothing has been done to mitigate the seriousness of the offending”.
Judge Mason said she assessed the offending as being moderately serious, and noted the ongoing impact on Watts, which included nerve issues and some cosmetic issues.
“Although he has been put to some expense, I’ve said that a lot of that should be covered by ACC, but the emotional impact of your offending is not so easily overcome by Mr Watts, and that continues to affect him,” Judge Mason said.
Ormsby was sentenced to six months’ supervision, which included a standard condition to do any programme, treatment and counselling directed, and was ordered to pay an emotional harm payment of $500.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.