‘Peacemaker’ in bar fight may lose his eye
The peacemaker in a barroom assault may lose an eye because of the bashing that took place afterwards in the carpark.
The man was pulled out of a car and beaten unconscious with a vacuum cleaner tube by 22-year-old Dean Nicholas Moa. One of the blows caused a serious cut to his right eye.
The assault in the carpark of Robbie’s Elmwood restaurant and bar was almost a year ago, but the victim was still having trouble with his injured eye, Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier told the Christchurch District Court today.
“His bad eye is affecting the vision in his good eye, so he was intending to have it removed,” she initially told Judge Gary MacAskill. The man had emergency surgery to try to save the eye immediately after the attack.
Later in the day, after checking again with the victim, Miss Boshier told the judge the man had now been referred to a different specialist to have a lens inserted, which could save the eye. It was a last resort, and if it did not work the eye would be removed.
Moa, a painter and decorator who now lives in Manurewa, Auckland, was before the court for sentencing after pleading guilty to a charge of wounding with intent to injure. After his guilty plea, the case was scheduled for a disputed facts hearing but the issues were settled on Wednesday without evidence being called.
An account of the violent incident was given in court at the sentencing, by Moa’s defence counsel Craig Ruane.
Moa’s father had been involved in the fight in the bar. He phoned Moa and told him he had been attacked and asked for Moa to come and get him.
Moa arrived and went into the bar to get his father. There was independent evidence that he was “riled up” at that stage.
As Moa and his father left, the older man went to a car in the carpark where the driver had been the aggressor in the earlier incident. The father punched the driver at the car door.
Moa then grabbed the vacuum cleaner tube and went to the passenger door where the second man who had been the peacemaker earlier was now seated.
He hauled this second man out of the car, forced him to the ground, and bashed him unconscious with the tube, causing the eye injury.
Mr Ruane said: “He grabbed the vacuum cleaner pipe and went back to the car having completely misconstrued the position. Not only was (this man) an innocent party in the hotel – probably the peacemaker – but he was probably the innocent party in the car.
“He is deeply remorseful about the injuries he has inflicted. He has completely misunderstood this man’s role.”
The victim now lives in Auckland and did not attend the sentencing.
Judge MacAskill said the circumstances did not support any view that Moa was acting in defence of his father at the time. He noted Moa had told the probation officer he had lost his temper. The force used was grossly excessive.
The 30-year-old victim had received a burst eyeball, a detached retina, and a fractured eye socket. He could no longer work as a painter and was on an unemployment benefit. His injury made him feel handicapped.
The tube had broken during the attack and the cutting injury may have been caused by a jagged edge, or by the end of the tube.
“Offenders must accept the risk that an attack with a weapon, especially to the head, may have consequences that were not intended or foreseen,” said the judge.
He jailed Moa for two years six months, and said home detention would not have been an adequate response for an offence involving serious violence, even if Moa had been within the range.
He ordered Moa to pay emotional harm reparations of $1500 he had offered to the victim.
Moa’s father was in court for the sentencing. Moa called to him, “Look after my son, eh,” as he was led to the cells.
Category: Focus
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