No jail time for double street stabbing
“Morons in cars” who abuse people as they drive past got little sympathy from the judge when two of them were stabbed by a victim of their bullying.
Christchurch District Court Judge Raoul Neave imposed no jail time on a 21-year-old who had admitted charges of wounding with intent to injure and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm over the November 14, 2013, incident.
Kyle Kenryo Barraclough got nine months of home detention which will have to be served at an address in the North Island, and 200 hours of community work.
After the incident, Barraclough told police he took a knife with him when he went out with a friend that night “because Christchurch is a dangerous place”.
Judge Neave reduced the sentence for his clean record, his youth, his guilty pleas, and because of “the real contribution of the complainants”. He said it was a case of excessive self-defence.
He told the slightly built Barraclough at the start of the sentencing, “Normally, I would be looking at a term of imprisonment, but in this case I have no intention of sending you to prison.”
But he also told him: “The incident could have taken a very tragic turn. You could easily have ended up in the High Court facing sentencing for manslaughter or murder.”
“Many people have found themselves peaceably walking along the road when they were jeered at by some mindless person in a car. These are bullies indulging themselves in a way that says more about them than it does about their victims.”
He spoke of “morons in cars” yelling abuse from cars at people who were behaving in a perfectly lawful and peaceful manner.
In this case, Barraclough had taken a knife with an 11cm blade with him when he and a friend went to a city bar. They were walking home through Merivale when some “moron” shouted at them from a passing van, Judge Neave said.
Barraclough told police the man shouted “faggots” at them.
“Your friend, a little unwisely but understandably, made a rude gesture in reply. That should have been the end of it but unfortunately it wasn’t.”
The van contained six men who had been drinking in the city. It turned around the stopped and the group approached the pair to confront them about “pulling the finger”.
“They say they didn’t intent violence; I just don’t believe that,” said Judge Neave.
Barraclough’s friend was assaulted, including by one of the stabbing victims. The friend ran away, and Barraclough then stabbed the assailant in the chest. It was a hard blow, and it was difficult to get the knife back out.
Police say Barraclough stabbed the second man as he pulled him away from the first victim, but Barraclough says he was already being punched when he stabbed both men.
Both men were stabbed in the abdomen, and one wound affected a lung. Both men had surgery, and were off work for two months. They now have unsightly scars.
Judge Neave described taking a knife because Christchurch was a dangerous place as “a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I heard one”.
“The conduct of the complainants must have given you cause to believe that your stance was not entirely without justification,” said the judge, but he condemned any carrying of knives.
Barraclough had accepted that his response was “utterly inappropriate and significantly out of proportion” but the actions of the complainants in seeking to administer some form of justice made them “culpable in the extreme”.
“Unfortunately for them, they chose the wrong person to bully,” said Judge Neave.
Category: Focus
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