{"id":171648,"date":"2025-12-07T06:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/171648\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T06:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:48:08","slug":"nelson-drug-deal-robbery-william-johns-jailed-after-knife-attack-leaves-victim-maimed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/171648\/","title":{"rendered":"Nelson drug deal robbery: William Johns jailed after knife attack leaves victim maimed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man\u2019s attacker, William Netane Popoia Johns, 30, has now been sentenced in the Nelson District Court<\/a> to just over three years in prison on a single charge of aggravated robbery.<\/p>\n

\"JudgeJudge Tony Snell said while sentencing William Johns in the Nelson District Court that the victim’s injuries were the result of a ‘sustained and persistent’ knife attack. Photo \/ Tracy Neal<\/p>\n

He initially faced further charges, including wounding with intent, but those were resolved earlier when Johns accepted the charge of aggravated robbery.<\/p>\n

He now has 12 convictions<\/a> to his name spanning several years, including one for dishonesty and \u201ca whole bunch\u201d more, which indicated non-compliance with court orders, Judge Tony Snell said. <\/p>\n

He said Johns was on supervision for an earlier sentence when he further offended, leading to his current prison term.<\/p>\n

Met in a city bar<\/p>\n

According to court documents, around 10.30pm on November 4 last year, Johns and some associates were at a bar in central Nelson<\/a> watching two men playing the pokie machines for several hours. <\/p>\n

The man, later injured in the attack, was winning. He, too, had noticed Johns watching him throughout the evening. <\/p>\n

The pair were introduced after the victim was asked if he wanted to buy drugs<\/a>. Johns told him his name was \u201cAnthony\u201d, court records showed. <\/p>\n

The victim, his friend and Johns left the bar, got into the victim\u2019s car, and drove to a nearby street.<\/p>\n

Johns told the victim to wait 10 minutes, then asked to see the money for the drug deal.<\/p>\n

Johns left, then returned about five minutes later, got in the back seat of the car, then \u201clunged\u201d at the victim with a knife.<\/p>\n

He held it against the victim\u2019s throat and yelled, \u201cgive me everything, give me all your money and everything you have\u201d.<\/p>\n

Seriously injured when fending off attack<\/p>\n

The victim seriously wounded his right hand while trying to stop the knife from cutting his throat.<\/p>\n

Police<\/a> said the knife cut through his hand and damaged tendons, which later required emergency surgery in Wellington.<\/p>\n

With the knife pressed to his throat and his hand badly injured, the victim used his left hand to press the vehicle ignition button on his car.<\/p>\n

Johns pulled the knife back, which cut the victim\u2019s hand further. <\/p>\n

The pair continued to struggle as Johns lunged at the victim with the knife again.<\/p>\n

Thinking he would be stabbed,<\/a> the victim grabbed the knife as it was about to hit his arm and continued to use his hand to try to stop the attack.<\/p>\n

He then panicked, put the vehicle into reverse and accelerated backwards into a parked van.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s associate got out and fled as Johns remained in the vehicle armed with the knife.<\/p>\n

By this stage, the victim, who was scared for his life, put the vehicle into drive and accelerated down the road, over a gutter and through a large fence before it smashed into a building in Nelson\u2019s Founders Heritage Park. <\/p>\n

\"InIn a desperate bid to flee his attacker, the victim drove his car through a large fence and into a building at Nelson’s Founders Heritage Park. Photo \/ Tracy Neal<\/p>\n

The vehicle\u2019s airbags went off, which allowed the victim to get out.<\/p>\n

Johns, still in the car, grabbed the victim\u2019s wallet with about $800 cash, then got out and started chasing the victim while still carrying the knife.<\/p>\n

As the victim ran, he began to feel faint from loss of blood, but managed to call 111. <\/p>\n

He was helped by members of the public and the police before being rushed to hospital<\/a> as Johns fled.<\/p>\n

The victim was transferred to Wellington Hospital for emergency surgery.<\/p>\n

Police said he has been left with permanent damage, which has affected his ability to work.<\/p>\n

Attack \u2018premeditated\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said, in forming his view on a sentencing outcome, that premeditation was involved in what became a \u201csustained and persistent\u201d attack with a knife.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had been watching this victim. You had seen him win money. You were clear that he had money on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said the violence and use of the weapon<\/a> added significantly to the degree of offending.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, were the injuries and impact on the victim. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe suffered significant injuries to his hand. He has got permanent tendon damage despite the best efforts of surgeons in Wellington<\/a>, and he is going to have to live with those injuries for the rest of his life,” the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are severely impacting his ability to earn a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

He categorised the robbery as a \u201chybrid\u201d between that of a taxi driver and a street robbery, and set a sentencing starting point of four years and six months\u2019 imprisonment, uplifted by one month to account for four new charges that were not before the court at the time.<\/p>\n

Johns had also pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified for a third or subsequent time, two breaches of bail and a theft of petrol. <\/p>\n

A further two-month uplift was added for the offending while on sentence, before credits for Johns\u2019 guilty pleas and personal circumstances brought the end sentence to three years and two weeks, with a release date to be set by the Parole Board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johns was also disqualified from driving for 12 months.<\/p>\n

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ\u2019s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man\u2019s attacker, William Netane Popoia Johns, 30, has now been sentenced in the Nelson District Court to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,89,110932,3468,3401,42,10933,14641,44011,61094,85587,7973,101,110931,91,43,1341,27517,29460,40,38,41,39,1337,2201,10744,102,25152],"class_list":["post-171648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-attack","tag-attacker","tag-deal","tag-drug","tag-headlines","tag-injured","tag-jailed","tag-johns","tag-knife","tag-knifewielding","tag-leaves","tag-left","tag-maimed","tag-nelson","tag-news","tag-permanently","tag-robbery","tag-stuck","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victim","tag-went","tag-william","tag-with","tag-wrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}