New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Domestic violence

Legal area

Court

18 Nov 2021

HALL v R [2021] NZHC 3123

Citation

[2021] NZHC 3123
Court

High Court

Court allowed the appeal, finding the trial Judge erred in understating credit for personal mitigation and EM bail; increased personal mitigation to 15% for cultural deprivation and rehabilitation, retained a 25% guilty plea discount, allowed one month credit for restrictive EM bail, producing an aggregate 40% mitigation and substituting the original 27 months and two weeks sentence with 24 months imprisonment and imposing specified post-release programmes and non-contact conditions.
3 Jun 2021

R v SAMSON [2021] NZHC 1335

Citation

[2021] NZHC 1335
Court

High Court

Section 104 applied because the murder involved a high level of brutality, callousness and premeditation in a domestic context; the defendant's adverse background and s 27 material did not make imposing the 17 year MPI manifestly unjust given the extreme violence, breach of trust and his prior violent offending, so the correct sentence is life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 17 years.
7 May 2021

WHAREPAPA v R [2021] NZHC 1011

Citation

[2021] NZHC 1011
Court

High Court

Two aggravating factors (attack to the head and victim vulnerability, including breach of a protection order) justified a band two starting point but a starting point of 20 months for combined offending was appropriate; the District Court's six month uplift for previous convictions was excessive given the last violent offending was in 2007 and established desistence since then; a three month guilty plea discount remained appropriate producing concurrent sentences of 17 months with specified release conditions including GPS monitoring.
5 Mar 2021

BRAZENDALE v R [2021] NZHC 397

Citation

[2021] NZHC 397
Court

High Court

The Court held the sentencing judge's assessment—a global starting point of 36 months, a 35% overall discount (20% for guilty pleas and approximately 15% for s 27 matters and remorse), and a six month uplift for prior convictions—fell within the available sentencing range; the s 27 material did not justify a larger discount and any remorse was undermined by minimisation, and while three months uplift for priors was clearly justifiable the additional uplift attributable to the repeated drink driving was also supportable; therefore the sentence of two years five months was not manifestly excess…
4 Mar 2021

ALLAN v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2021] NZHC 379

Citation

[2021] NZHC 379
Court

High Court

The High Court held there was no error in the District Court's reasoning or result: the five‑year starting point was justified by multiple discrete strangulations (including loss of consciousness and incontinence), threats to kill, indecent assaults and significant injuries, and s8(d) of the Sentencing Act and relevant precedents supported a high starting point; the discounted end sentence of 37 months was within the available range and the appeal was dismissed.
7 Dec 2020

TURNER v R [2020] NZHC 3213

Citation

[2020] NZHC 3213
Court

High Court

Appeal dismissed; judge did not err in refusing to commute the sentence to home detention because the offending was serious and repeated, the appellant posed a significant risk of reoffending, prior community and rehabilitative measures had been ineffective, and the appellant failed to engage with community work, so imprisonment was the least restrictive sentence that met sentencing purposes.
7 Nov 2019

SOLOMON v R [2019] NZHC [2915]

Citation

SOLOMON v R [2019] NZHC [2915]
Court

High Court

The High Court held Judge Adeane did not err in law or principle in refusing to commute the short term of imprisonment to home detention; the Judge considered and balanced sentencing purposes, applied appropriate discounts, and lawfully concluded that, given the gravity of the offending, multiple attackers, serious injuries, the offender's gang membership and lack of insight, imprisonment for 15 months was justified and not manifestly excessive.
21 May 2019

TUMAI v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2019] NZHC 1119

Citation

[2019] NZHC 1119
Court

High Court

The High Court held the original global starting point of three and a half years was within range, declined to grant a separate remorse discount because remorse was not robustly established beyond the guilty pleas, allowed an 8% discrete discount (three months) for demonstrated rehabilitative efforts, applied the full 25% guilty plea discount, and substituted the end sentence with two years and five months' imprisonment; home detention was not available or appropriate.
13 Mar 2019

ROWLANDS v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2019] NZHC 437

Citation

[2019] NZHC 437
Court

High Court

The High Court held the trial judge did not err in preferring the complainant's contemporaneous signed police statement over her later inconsistent oral testimony because the statement was made immediately after the events, signed as true, consistent with police observations and the resiling was plausibly explained by family pressure; therefore there was no real risk of miscarriage of justice and the convictions stand.
20 Mar 2018

R v EVERETT [2018] NZHC 468

Citation

[2018] NZHC 468
Court

High Court

Given limited particular evidence about the assault, Taueki methodology was inappropriate for setting a higher starting point; using comparative authorities the correct baseline was five to five and a half years, uplifted to 7.5 years for domestic context, victim vulnerability, head injury and defendant's callous indifference and denial of responsibility; impose a minimum period equal to half the sentence (3 years 9 months) to ensure adequacy of denunciation, deterrence and protection.