Sportsman jailed for boiling water assault
File image. © Andrew Bardwell
A 38-year-old man described as a talented sportsman has been jailed for seven domestic violence offences, including an assault using boiling water.
Levi Rushton’s record includes a conviction for manslaughter for his part in a 1997 armed robbery of a bottle-store in Christchurch in which the shop assistant was shot dead by other offenders.
He has been in custody on remand for the domestic violence for months and may be released soon after Christchurch District Court Judge Raoul Neave jailed him for 18 months.
Rushton had admitted three charges of assaulting a woman, three of assault with intent to injure, and one of threatening to kill. The assaults involved using boiling water, an electrical cord, a knife, a pot, and a towel.
Rushton, a league player, was described by defence counsel Josh Lucas as having two sides. He was a talented sportsman, able to earn a good living, and a speaker of Te Reo Maori. However, he reacted unusually when under the influence of “certain intoxicants”.
Judge Neave said it had been fairly significant violence because of its sustained nature.
The victim had found the violence “traumatising and debilitating”. “She has found herself really diminished by your behaviour,” said the judge.
Yet the pre-sentence report showed Rushton accepting full responsibility and genuine shame.
The judge said Rushton wanted to have a relationship with his children, but until he sorted out his substance abuse issues courts would decide he could not be trusted and he would not see them.
He was intelligent and able, and had the ability to make himself into a person his children would be proud to call their father. “That is not the person I am seeing at the moment,” Judge Neave said.
He jailed Rushton for 18 months, with six months of special release conditions to follow, and granted a protection order to keep him away from the victim.
Category: Focus
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Connect
Connect with us via: