May 28, 2010

Street fracas leads to three jail terms

By David Clarkson

Jail terms have been imposed on three young men who admitted their roles in a street confrontation between groups in cars that involved shouting threats, waving weapons, and a serious stabbing.

The stabbing victim was in hospital for more than a week with a wound that scratched his liver.

Kaelish Arlo Davies, 23, who wielded the knife in the central city fracas on Anzac Day 2009, was jailed for three years six months after admitting the charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Corey Graham Nolan, 26, was jailed for 14 months on a charges of intentional damage and assault with a weapon.

Alex Mehlhopt, 23, was jailed for 20 months for being part of the confrontation where he had smashed an axe through a rival car?s window, and for a Christmas morning burglary where he had raided food from the kitchen area of a holiday park.

A burglary co-offender, who had admitted taking wrapped presents to be given to children that morning, was jailed for two years five months at a sentencing in March.

Mehlhopt had admitted charges of possession of an offensive weapon, intentional damage, assault with a weapon, burglary, and possession of cannabis and utensils for using it.

Christchurch District Court Judge Michael Crosbie said the pre-sentence reports reflected the attitudes to authority of the three offenders standing in the dock. All were assessed as a high risk of reoffending.

?It is a frightening trend for young people to arm themselves,? the judge said, after recounting the events of the night.

It began with shouting between cars along Moorhouse Avenue. The cars stopped but when Mehlhopt got out and presented a small knife, the other car left.

He and Davies then drove to Nolan?s house where they picked up Nolan, and some weapons, and went back into the city looking for the other car. They were even stopped and spoken to by the police along the way, but were undeterred.

They later found the other car and the final confrontation happened in Alexandra Street, near Fitzgerald Avenue, where Nolan waved the axe and Mehlhopt struck the window of the other car with it, and Davies stabbed a rival with a knife.

The sentencing had been delayed after claims that a bottle had been thrown or used to threaten the three of them before the stabbing, and the crown had to accept that broken glass had been found at the scene.

Judge Crosbie said the occupants of the other car had played their part in the initial confrontation, but the actions of the three had escalated the seriousness of the incident. By arming themselves they had taken the hostility to another level.

Judge Crosbie reviewed the criminal histories of all three men and noted the thousands of dollars in fines they had amassed. Mehlhopt and Nolan were within the range for home detention but he refused that sentence saying it was an insufficient deterrent and ?would send the wrong message to those disposed to the same type of behaviour in our local community?.

He recommended that Davies get into a programme for alcohol and drug abuse as soon as possible during his prison term.