At the same time, the victim and his partner, who were not known to Sandoval, were also in town.<\/p>\n
Sandoval told a presentence report writer that when the groups crossed paths, the victim yelled \u201cderogatory, racial slurs\u201d at him and was aggressive.<\/p>\n
The victim \u201csquared up\u201d at Sandoval, effectively \u201cinviting the defendant to fight\u201d, Judge Arthur Tompkins said.<\/p>\n
Juan Manuel Leon Sandoval’s case was heard in the Hamilton District Court. <\/p>\n
Also around that time, the victim\u2019s partner got between the two men and kicked Sandoval in the stomach, to which he retaliated, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Sandoval and his friend then walked away.<\/p>\n
They walked away from the victim a further four times, as the victim continued to run after Sandoval and his friend, trying to start a fight.<\/p>\n
On the sixth occasion, the pair did fight, a result which Judge Tompkins said the \u201cvictim was bent on creating\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough, perhaps because of the effect of the alcohol on both protagonists, many of the initial kicks and punches missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandoval eventually connected with a punch, which caused both of them to fall to the ground. <\/p>\n
He got up first and then kicked the victim twice, but it remained unclear where on the body those kicks landed.<\/p>\n
Members of the public tried to break up the fight, as Sandoval kicked the victim in the head, causing him to lose consciousness.<\/p>\n
The victim suffered cuts, grazes and a brain bleed.<\/p>\n
\u2018He could have simply walked away\u2019<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Kasey Dillon submitted that while the victim was \u201cby no means spotless\u201d concerning his behaviour, it was Sandoval\u2019s final kick to the head that was the most aggravating factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was no longer a threat to Mr Sandoval, and he took that opportunity to kick him in the head and render him unconscious.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could have simply walked away as he had previously tried to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the judge interjected, stating that Sandoval had already tried that five times. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving previously tried to walk away, that really wasn\u2019t going to work, was it, because he tried that on a number of occasions and it hadn\u2019t been effective in de-escalating the situation,\u201d the judge told Dillon.<\/p>\n
Dillon said he was not stepping away from that, but pursued his argument and added that the victim had ongoing issues with memory loss, sleep and that any impact of a conviction on Sandoval was \u201csimply speculative\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u2018Extreme self-defence\u2019<\/p>\n
Tu\u2019inukuafe submitted that the assault would not have happened but for the victim\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Sandvoal\u2019s offending can be described as extreme self-defence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you have noted, he did try to walk away from the victim on multiple occasions. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur submission is really based on the fact that the victim\u2019s involvement in this is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
She accepted the victim was left injured, but said that had to be viewed in the full context of the incident. <\/p>\n
Before the fight, Sandoval and his friend had walked \u201cquite some distance\u201d from the victim before he chased him again and lunged at Sandoval with a punch, Tu\u2019inukuafe submitted.<\/p>\n
She said the offending was opportunistic, Sandoval had not reoffended since that night, had good prospects of rehabilitation and had self-referred for counselling.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s now in a position in his life … where he wants to make a meaningful contribution to society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandoval, who, despite being unemployed for the past seven months, had also managed to save $500 to offer the victim as an emotional harm payment.<\/p>\n
Tu\u2019inukuafe said her client was still young, and a conviction would hinder his ability to get a job in the future.<\/p>\n
Judge Tompkins agreed with Tu\u2019inukuafe\u2018s assessment of Sandoval having a low culpability, and said, given all of the factors involved, it was a case where the consequences on future job prospects, \u201care more acute than many others\u201d. <\/p>\n
In granting his application for a discharge without conviction, Judge Tompkins said he had not overlooked the injuries the victim suffered, but found that Sandoval had met the threshold required.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His lawyer, Avina Tu\u2019inukuafe, argued a conviction would impact Sandoval\u2019s ability to secure a job in the future.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,74,240119,17094,1596,40677,15970,1359,43941,545,15124,18791,19196,6288,15258,25491,33920,20053,2845,240117,135771,111,43,139,69,188013,49614,30619,240118,58932,5424,127536,6923,102,1339],"class_list":["post-476603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abuse","tag-after","tag-aggressor","tag-avoid","tag-brain","tag-colombian","tag-conviction","tag-described","tag-discharge","tag-extreme","tag-fight","tag-fighting","tag-granted","tag-hamilton","tag-injury","tag-intent","tag-juan","tag-lawyer","tag-leaving","tag-leon","tag-manuel","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pursued","tag-racial","tag-repeatedly","tag-sandoval","tag-selfdefence","tag-street","tag-subjected","tag-what","tag-with","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476603","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=476603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}