It came as no surprise to Marsters when Judge Clark told him he was going to prison.
Tied up in home invasion
The court heard that, about 4am on May 27, 2024, Marsters and three others wearing dark clothing and balaclavas broke into the elderly victim’s home in Huntly.
The noise woke the victim, who left his room to investigate.
Marsters confronted him and, during the encounter, one of the intruders struck the man on the arm with a hard object, smashing his watch.
The group then went into his bedroom and demanded his wallet and phone.
Marsters stayed with the man and told him to lie face-down on his bed as his co-offenders searched his home with torches.
When a co-offender told Marsters to tie him up, Marsters found a pair of shoes and used the laces to bind the victim’s hands behind his back.
The group stole the man’s phone and took $310 from his wallet.
The victim suffered a sore arm but did not require medical treatment.
‘Quick, quick, run, run’
The assault on Marsters’ partner happened on Valentine’s Day last year after the pair began arguing at home.
Marsters used his body to push her, causing her to fall to the ground outside their unit.
He then grabbed her, pulled her to her feet and repeatedly told her, “Quick, quick, quick, run, run”.
Walking aggressively towards her, he pushed her along a hallway with his body before forcing her through an open doorway towards the stairs.
Zac Marsters was sentenced in Hamilton District Court.
He then shoulder-barged her, causing her to fall down a flight of stairs and briefly lose consciousness.
As she struggled to get back to her feet, he followed her down the stairs, continuing to yell, before pushing her down a second flight of stairs to the bottom of the stairwell.
Realising she was injured, he asked a member of the public to call an ambulance and remained with her until police arrived.
‘Look how remorseful I am’
Marsters attended a restorative justice conference with the home invasion victim.
Defence counsel Glen Prentice told Judge Clark that Marsters “obviously got a good talking to” from him, and commented that he wanted to know where he would end up in 10 years’ time.
Prentice sought a discount based on a cultural report, which showed Marsters had been moved around frequently as a child.
While he had performed well at school and found employment, Prentice said Marsters had ultimately fallen in with the wrong crowd.
Crown prosecutor Kasey Dillon questioned the sincerity of Marsters’ remorse, noting he had brought two unsigned letters to court.
“This is a letter written by someone else and provided to the court to say, ‘Look how remorseful I am’.”
He argued the cultural report ultimately showed Marsters’ offending was the result of choices he had made and the company he had chosen to keep.
‘Very scary and traumatic’
Marsters had earlier accepted a sentence indication from Judge Clark on both cases combined.
She adopted an overall starting point of eight years and six months’ imprisonment before allowing a 20% discount for his guilty pleas because they avoided two separate trials.
While Dillon had raised “a fair point” about the remorse letters, Judge Clark said she appreciated the sentiment behind them and wanted them passed on to the victims.
She also noted the home invasion victim had been frank with Marsters during restorative justice.
“He’s certainly someone who wants Mr Marsters to make better decisions and do better for himself in the future, but he didn’t give Mr Marsters a free ride.
“He was the victim of what must have been a very scary and traumatic event.”
Judge Clark said it was easy to imagine the lasting impact on an elderly man of waking to find strangers in his home and being treated in such a way.
She told Marsters it was “always such a waste” to see a young man jailed, but that he still had the opportunity to turn his life around after his release.
After allowing a further 15% discount, she reduced the total sentence from 105 months to 68 months and sentenced Marsters to five years and eight months’ imprisonment.
She also ordered him to pay the elderly victim $460 in reparation at a rate of $20 a week, with payments to begin 28 days after his release from prison.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.