{"id":418746,"date":"2026-05-09T00:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T00:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418746\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T00:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T00:35:08","slug":"mattheus-heimer-sentenced-to-nine-months-supervision-for-assaulting-woman-at-mcdonalds-queenstown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418746\/","title":{"rendered":"Mattheus Heimer sentenced to nine months supervision for assaulting woman at McDonald\u2019s Queenstown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The incident arose after Heimer entered McDonald\u2019s Queenstown<\/a> in the town centre at 3am on December 17, 2025.<\/p>\n

The court heard Heimer saw the woman skating inside and instead of communicating with her, he pinned her down on a table. <\/p>\n

He was then pulled off by her friends, but he went back for more, slapping her across the face with an open hand.<\/p>\n

The incident was caught on McDonald\u2019s CCTV cameras, which also showed he remained at McDonald\u2019s talking to the victim and a number of people who came to her aid following the assault.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe assualt happened at McDonalds Queenstown in the early hours of December 17. Photo \/ NZPA<\/p>\n

The woman provided a victim impact statement to the court.<\/p>\n

She said she was now nervous about being in the city centre and feels self-conscious when she hears people approaching from behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am worried about getting attacked again. I am worried about going out alone now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter to the victim, read out in court, Heimer apologised and said he drank after receiving distressing news about a family member.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want you to know I am not a violent person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Heimer had since lost his job and accommodation but had found new employment as a scaffolder.<\/p>\n

Defence counsel DeAnne Nicoloso told the judge the case was \u201cquite unique\u201d.<\/p>\n

Heimer was originally charged with common assault as both he and the police believed the victim was male.<\/p>\n

If he knew the victim was female, he \u201cwould have thought twice\u201d, Nicoloso said.<\/p>\n

But Judge Walsh said Heimer said it did not matter if the victim was male or female.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see you\u2019ve gone on a bender after you received bad news about a family member,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give any weight to whether you thought this person was a male or female, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cpoor young woman\u201d will look over her shoulder in this town for the rest of her life, he said.<\/p>\n

Heimer was sentenced to nine months\u2019 supervision and ordered to attend and complete alcohol, drug and anger management programmes.<\/p>\n

He is not allowed to contact the victim and was to pay her $500 in emotional harm reparation.<\/p>\n

But despite telling the victim he was not a violent person, NZME can reveal Heimer was previously convicted of assault in July 2023, at which time he was handed down a sentence of intensive supervision.<\/p>\n

Between November 2021 and 2022 he managed to get five charges for five separate incidents.<\/p>\n

In May 2022 he was sentenced for driving drunk twice while on a learner\u2019s licence and two counts of assault following a fight at a flat party.<\/p>\n

For those charges, he was sentenced to 100 hours\u2019 community work, 12 months\u2019 supervision and ordered to pay $250 reparation.<\/p>\n

Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incident arose after Heimer entered McDonald\u2019s Queenstown in the town centre at 3am on December 17, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51247,1975,6097,2082,305,215098,2944,6451,215097,10167,3234,6978,111,139,37968,69,89273,20930,2539,312,5161,182417,104646,213,21416,20110,61,17251,1354,6730],"class_list":["post-418746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-assaulting","tag-at","tag-down","tag-for","tag-have","tag-heimer","tag-inside","tag-knew","tag-mattheus","tag-mcdonalds","tag-months","tag-neck","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nine","tag-nz","tag-pinned","tag-queenstown","tag-restaurant","tag-says","tag-sentenced","tag-skateboarder","tag-slapped","tag-sports","tag-supervision","tag-thought","tag-to","tag-twice","tag-woman","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418746","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=418746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}