One night in November 2024, Stables and his partner were arguing in the bedroom of their home in South Auckland.
The summary of facts says the victim made a comment that “enraged” her partner and he began hitting her around the head, pulling her hair, and yelling.
The lights were out and the room was dark.
He continued striking her head and when she went to move away, he shoved her hard, causing her to fall down, the summary said.
Stables stood over his victim and slapped her several more times.
She attempted to get up and away, but he punched her in the chest, causing her again to fall.
Hearing that the victim was winded and struggling to breathe, Stables stopped his attack.
The woman was left with a large lump on the side of her head and bruising to her eye, chest and neck.
Punished for pranks
Stables was a radio personality in the 90s and 2000s, drumming up headlines and routinely landing in court for his shock jock antics during stints with The Edge and ZM.
In 2000, he was convicted and fined $1100 for impersonating an Interpol detective during a prank call.
In the call he told Los Angeles airport authorities that then-co-workers Jason Reeves, JJ Feeney and Clarke Gayford were smuggling kiwi eggs in their “rear cavities”.
The trio was detained for hours upon arrival in the United States and searched.
He also ended up in court for stunts that included throwing a bucket of water on anti-vivisection protesters and dropping his pants after persuading a concert-goer to participate in his “kiss my arse for a backstage pass” contest.
Police investigated him again in 2002 after he called another station pretending to be a traffic safety manager, suggesting motorists pass the time by “playing with themselves”.
Two years later, about 800 people had to be evacuated from three Northland beaches after Stables reported shark sightings and a sewage spill to Surf Lifesaving.
Notorious prankster Iain Stables worked as a radio DJ for The Edge and ZM. Photo / Brett Phibbs
‘I have lost everything’
He was set to join Radio Hauraki in 2010 but the radio station ended the contract before he went on air after he was involved in a fight with a Jetstar employee upon arriving late.
“I said his airline was a f***ing loser and I called him a f***ing loser,” Stables told the Herald at the time, explaining that he suffered a concussion in the fracas.
The employee was charged with assault, while Stables faced a charge of disorderly behaviour likely to incite violence.
However, the employee was later found not guilty after the court heard Stables had thrown a portable radio at him and a witness said Stables called him a “black motherf***er”.
Police subsequently dropped the charge against Stables. The Jetstar employee returned to his job but Stables’ Radio Hauraki offer was never revived.
He was also found guilty by a jury in 2012 of punching the brother of his ex-girlfriend during a property dispute a year earlier.
“I have nothing left,” he said during the trial.
“I have lost my career, I have lost everything … what have I got to gain? I have already been screwed.”
He was later sentenced to four months’ community detention, for what the judge described as a “violent tantrum”, and for an unrelated incident in which he punched an advertiser who was in arrears to a radio station where Stables was at that time volunteering.
Mental health issues and a brain injury
In court this week, Stables’ lawyer Peter Tomlinson said his client used to be a “rather flamboyant” radio announcer in the mid-90s.
Tomlinson said at the time of the 2024 assault, however, Stables was having mental health issues and suffering from a traumatic brain injury.
In a Corrections report before the court, Stables told a probation officer he had difficulty remembering what happened the night of the offending but took full responsibility.
He felt what he had done had destroyed his family, the report said.
Since his brain injury, Stables said things had changed and he found it difficult to control his emotions.
There was no victim impact statement from the victim, Judge Lynn Hughes said, but the woman had attended a restorative justice conference with her former partner.
“You both gained something out of being able to meet in that forum,” Judge Hughes said.
Stables had been able to apologise and ask for forgiveness, while the victim had accepted his apology and told the man how the assault had impacted her, the judge said.
The sentence
Judge Hughes said the victim was Stables’ partner and therefore should have felt safe in her own home.
She lessened his sentence for his guilty plea, mental health issues, brain injury and the fact that he had completed a stopping violence course last year.
She also took into account the restorative justice meeting, landing at a 50% discount for his sentence.
Stables was sentenced to 18 months’ intensive supervision and ordered to attend assessments for any treatment, counselling and non-violence programmes to the satisfaction of his probation officer.
The judge noted that while Stables had previous convictions for violence, including family violence, there were also periods where he didn’t come before the court for a “lengthy period of time”.
Obviously, the judge said, within those periods of life things were going much better for him, the judge said.
“Keep making good progress and I won’t see you here in future,” she concluded.
“I wish you the best.”
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.