{"id":175009,"date":"2025-12-09T07:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175009\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:24:09","slug":"sheldon-romas-attack-on-autistic-man-was-mistaken-vigilante-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175009\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheldon Roma\u2019s attack on autistic man was \u2018mistaken vigilante justice\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roma\u2019s lawyer Jesse Lang pushed for his client\u2019s name to be permanently suppressed<\/a>, citing the safety of him and his young family after threats were made on social media in July after details of the attack were released by police.<\/p>\n

But Judge Arthur Tompkins declined, citing not only the seriousness of the attack, but also that people often didn\u2019t have the \u201cmeans or intention\u201d to carry out anything, \u201cwell beyond simply passing commentary from the safety of their keyboards\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, there\u2019s no evidence of real risk or extreme hardship to either the defendant or his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cInevitably offending of this kind will attract publicity, but I do not consider that the high threshold of name suppression … has been met here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Kicked and punched to the head and chest\u2019<\/p>\n

While the victim is 29, he has autism and the mental and emotional maturity of a 4 to 6-year-old.<\/p>\n

It was 5.55pm when the victim was walking alone along Sandwich Rd, St Andrews, and outside the All Saints Community Church, when Roma and two other associates pulled up in a Nissan Skyline.<\/p>\n

The trio got out and approached the victim, who then tried to run away.<\/p>\n

All three pursued him, and one \u201cviolently\u201d pushed him to the ground.<\/p>\n

They then surrounded him, and all began kicking and punching him to the head and chest multiple times.<\/p>\n

A witness who knew the victim saw the assault and ran across the road, yelling at the trio to stop.<\/p>\n

\"SheldonSheldon Roma and two others viciously assaulted an autistic man in a Hamilton street in a mistaken vigilante attack. Photo \/ Police<\/p>\n

One of Roma\u2019s associates then picked the victim up off the ground in a choke hold before dropping his limp body to the ground.<\/p>\n

They all then left.<\/p>\n

The victim was hospitalised with grazes to his elbows, knees, and top of his feet, a bloody nose and swollen jaw.<\/p>\n

Roma eventually handed himself in after police issued a press release and a photo of the trio at the scene.<\/p>\n

He declined to speak to police after getting advice from his lawyer. <\/p>\n

\u2018It wasn\u2019t entirely out of nowhere\u2019<\/p>\n

Lang had initially filed an application for discharge without conviction on behalf of his client, but that wasn\u2019t pursued today.<\/p>\n

He also urged Judge Tompkins to hand down a sentence of community detention and supervision along with emotional harm reparation.<\/p>\n

When asked about Roma\u2019s co-offenders, Lang said one had been charged, while the third was yet to be identified.<\/p>\n

Asked why it happened, Lang said he didn\u2019t want to go into detail in open court.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is effectively vigilante action?\u201d the judge asked him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir, I can\u2019t step back from that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t entirely out of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge also noted Roma had been involved in \u201cat least\u201d four domestic violence police callouts, which seemed contrary to letters that had been annexed to Lang\u2019s submissions.<\/p>\n

Lang said family violence callouts could relate to any number of incidents, which are not \u201cnecessarily proven\u201d, which was the case with Roma.<\/p>\n

The police prosecutor pushed for a home detention sentence and emotional harm reparation of $1000.<\/p>\n

She also noted the victim opposed Roma\u2019s name suppression, under new changes to the Victim Rights Act, which now sees them able to oppose or support suppression.<\/p>\n

\u2018This was mistaken vigilante justice\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Tompkins noted the victim had previously been living independently but was now back living with his family due to what happened.<\/p>\n

He has been left unable to leave the house and remains \u201cextremely anxious\u201d when he has to.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Lang … accepted that this attack was in the nature of mistaken vigilante justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant and his associates believed, without foundation, that in their eyes the victim deserved a beating, but it\u2019s clear that that belief was completely unprovoked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has occurred is a serious beating in the street by three offenders against a very vulnerable victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roma was sentenced to four months\u2019 home detention and ordered to pay $1000 emotional harm reparation at $20 a week.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roma\u2019s lawyer Jesse Lang pushed for his client\u2019s name to be permanently suppressed, citing the safety of him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[89,112398,6148,5158,112399,111,43,139,69,90,112397,112396,112400,6736],"class_list":["post-175009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-attack","tag-autistic","tag-justice","tag-man","tag-mistaken","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-romas","tag-sheldon","tag-vigilante","tag-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175009","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=175009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}