{"id":47914,"date":"2025-09-28T08:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T08:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47914\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T08:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T08:18:08","slug":"lucky-clarke-74-throttled-punched-child-after-thinking-shes-grabbed-his-cellphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47914\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Clarke, 74, throttled, punched, child after thinking she\u2019s grabbed his cellphone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat became evident [at trial] was that you had a very old world view of discipline<\/a>,\u201d the judge told him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou carried it out in an excessive and overhanded way<\/a>, and, obviously, looking after these kids, you were way out of your depth and skill to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven by older standards, this type of discipline was out of order.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Pushed onto a bunk bed and choked for eight seconds\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Marshall explained how the 12-year-old victim asked to borrow his cellphone, and went to Clarke\u2019s room, but came back with a vape.<\/p>\n

Clarke thought she had his phone and grabbed it out of her hand. <\/p>\n

He got angry, and she went to a bedroom. <\/p>\n

Clarke followed her and pushed her on to a bunk before choking her for about eight seconds.<\/p>\n

He then punched her, put her in a headlock, and hit her head against a metal bar of the bunk bed, cutting her chin.<\/p>\n

He went to the kitchen and smashed the vape with a large kitchen knife.<\/p>\n

He then put the girl into a headlock and punched her again.<\/p>\n

A second young child also gave evidence at trial about how Clarke assaulted him \u201ca number of times\u201d, including slaps to his legs and tummy. <\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s from another time, another era\u2019<\/p>\n

Commenting on a letter Clarke had written to the court, prosecutor Sergeant Stephen Leet told the judge he was unsure of its meaning, \u201cbut I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s any form of remorse, sir\u201c.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s from another time, and another era,\u201d the judge replied.<\/p>\n

Defence counsel Kerry Burroughs agreed and said that a lot of older people did not understand how times had changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology\u2019s changed, the opportunities through technology\u2019s changed, the way we live has changed, everything has changed, nothing has stayed as it was, and the majority of the population says that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, one thing was clear – \u201cMr Clarke should never have been left in charge of those children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But it was the actions of a man from \u201cone afternoon, and it escalated and things got right out of hand. It was beyond his control or comprehension what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pushed for his client to be given community detention, or, if not, a sentence of home detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a one-off situation that has had a significant effect on Mr Clarke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Marshall accepted that Clarke was a Mormon, had suffered serious back injuries over the past few years, and had been on ACC.<\/p>\n

Clarke had several health issues, including a fractured vertebra, diabetes, and high blood pressure, and was on various medications and painkillers.<\/p>\n

After applying various discounts, from two years and three months\u2019 jail, the judge got down to 20 months and converted that to eight months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour health issues would make it extremely difficult to endure a sentence of imprisonment,\u201d the judge said.<\/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":"\u201cWhat became evident [at trial] was that you had a very old world view of discipline,\u201d the judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20700,74,1348,2511,13177,22403,42,293,16507,43,105,6180,1960,41732,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-47914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-20700","tag-after","tag-cellphone","tag-child","tag-clarke","tag-grabbed","tag-headlines","tag-his","tag-lucky","tag-news","tag-punched","tag-shes","tag-thinking","tag-throttled","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47914","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=47914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}