Boiling oil thrown in domestic dispute
A woman threw boiling cooking oil over her partner in a post-party argument at their home in Burnham, near Christchurch.
Name suppression was refused for Tammylee Ada Ngaronoa Rapana, 25, when she admitted the attack, at the Christchurch District Court.
She pleaded guilty to a charge of injuring her partner – the father of their three children – with reckless disregard for his safety. The charge had been reduced from wounding with reckless disregard.
The man was in court with their three children for the court appearance. He supported the bid by defence counsel Nicola Hansen for suppression of Rapana’s name on the grounds that it would cause him undue hardship at a time when “they are rebuilding their family and trying to move forward”.
Judge Paul Kellar refused to make the order and remanded Rapana on bail for a hearing on July 27 when an application will be heard for her discharge without conviction.
Miss Hansen told the court: “[The discharge] may be a something of a long shot because of the gravity of the offending.”
Police prosecutor David Rusbatch told the court the incident happened about 3.30am on January 11, when Rapana was in bed and her partner arrived home and began to cook chips in hot oil on the stove-top.
Rapana became agitated because she had walked herself home from a party they both attended earlier that night.
She got out of bed and punched her partner once on the chin. He tried to restrain her from hitting him again.
Rapana then grabbed the pot of boiling oil off the stove-top and threw it at him. Oil landed on his left arm, left neck and shoulder, and back. That caused him to run screaming into the shower to ease the pain.
An ambulance was called and he was taken to Christchurch Hospital where he was admitted and treated for partial thickness burns.
Rapana told police she was aware the pot contained boiling oil, but she had not thought about the consequences, Mr Rusbatch said.
Category: News
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