Attack on child using ride at mall
A drunk man who assaulted a three-year-old girl who was on an amusement ride at a shopping mall has ended up in jail for 27 months.
The attack on the child was one of a series of violent offences that sent 37-year-old Craig Jason Graham to prison at his Christchurch District Court sentencing by Judge Alistair Garland.
Graham’s defence counsel Glenn Dixon said it was accepted that the child would have been traumatised by Graham’s assault.
He was drunk when he lifted and dropped the entertainment ride several times while the girl was on it, while she was at a shopping centre with her grandmother.
Graham then assaulted the two police officers who caught him soon after.
He admitted those assaults, and also an assault on his male partner.
For that offending, he received 160 hours of community work and intensive supervision at a sentencing on September 22.
Only seven days later, he got into an argument with his partner at home, stopped him calling the police, pushed him over and then kicked him in the head three times while wearing shoes.
The victim receiving bruising and a cut to the head. He bled extensively and was hospitalised. Graham admitted the charge of assault with intent to injure.
Judge Garland said the frequency and seriousness of Graham’s offending was increasing when he considered the latest offending as well as resentencing for all of the earlier assaults.
Graham’s record had five convictions for violence, including intentionally injuring someone in 2013, and assaulting a woman and possession of a weapon in 2007.
The latest pre-sentence report indicated significant problems with alcohol and violence. It assessed Graham’s likelihood of reoffending and causing harm to others as high.
Judge Garland granted a request from the partner for a protection order. He said: “You had previously assaulted him. You continued to exert power over him by the use of force because you knew you could.”
The judge imposed a series of sentences totalling 27 months jail.
Category: Focus
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