{"id":500901,"date":"2026-06-29T10:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500901\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:26:11","slug":"mother-dana-pike-sentenced-after-violent-assault-on-nelson-daycare-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500901\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother Dana Pike sentenced after violent assault on Nelson daycare staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

The victim, who spoke at the hearing, and who spoke on behalf of the other victim, said she was at the time entrusted with the care of tamariki, which was a role she carried out with commitment and pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, that sense of safety was violently shattered when without warning, you entered the daycare and assaulted, punched and shoved me,\u201d the victim said.<\/p>\n

Sudden attack <\/p>\n

The court heard that on September 15 last year, the two victims, who were both staff at the early childhood centre in Stoke, Nelson<\/a>, were together and talking about a child there.<\/p>\n

According to the summary of facts, Pike, who had earlier been trespassed from the premises, rushed at the first victim, who was shoved against a wall, hitting her shoulder. <\/p>\n

She fell to the ground, unable to move her arm and defenceless as Pike stood over her yelling.<\/p>\n

As the victim tried to get up, she was kicked and punched in the face. She said the impact had been \u201csignificant and ongoing\u201d, including the need for rehabilitation to correct torn tendons in her shoulder.<\/p>\n

The second victim stepped in to help and was shoved in the attack before heading inside and locking the door, the court heard at Pike\u2019s earlier plea appearance.<\/p>\n

\"DanaDana Pike has been sentenced in the Nelson District Court on charges linked to a violent assault on two early childhood teachers. Photo \/ Tracy Neal<\/p>\n

The first victim\u2019s own child saw the attack and had developed \u201csignificant anxiety\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a violent act with lasting consequences,\u201d she said in her statement.<\/p>\n

The second victim said her sense of trust was overtaken by fear and chaos, including in the weeks and months that followed, as a place of warmth had become a place of high anxiety.<\/p>\n

She was \u201cshaken, angered and disgusted\u201d that it happened in a place where Pike\u2019s own child was in daycare. <\/p>\n

\u2018Significant harm\u2019<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Ian Miller said it was clear that \u201csignificant harm\u201d was caused.<\/p>\n

He said aggravating features included Pike\u2019s history<\/a>, the fact she had offended while on bail and the state of her mental health. <\/p>\n

Miller said Pike was undergoing psychiatric care, including for what she described as an underlying serious mental health condition, but there was no official diagnosis. <\/p>\n

He said her behaviour that day had arisen from an idea she had \u201cgot in her head\u201d about a perceived grievance involving an ex-partner. <\/p>\n

Police said the attack had caused injuries,<\/a> which had taken time to recover from, and it was an \u201cunprovoked attack in a workplace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Rebecca Terry said it was ongoing in nature and what was also concerning was that Pike had returned later to watch the victim.<\/p>\n

No excuse <\/p>\n

Judge Chris Macklin said the offending appeared to have arisen from a \u201cperceived wrong\u201d by the victim against Pike, in respect of her former partner.<\/p>\n

He said Pike might have told the court she had taken steps to address the issues which led to the offending. However, there was no excuse for the kind of \u201cpersistent, aggressive and quite frankly, dangerous behaviour,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

He said Pike\u2019s misdeeds have had a long-lasting impact on all those affected.<\/p>\n

The appropriate way to hold Pike to account, while making sure she got the help she needed and keeping the community safe from her \u201cown worst impulses\u201d, was the sentence he arrived at, he said.<\/p>\n

Judge Macklin said prison would not address<\/a> Pike\u2019s underlying issues, and her children would be negatively impacted.<\/p>\n

She was sentenced to six months\u2019 community detention and 12 months\u2019 intensive supervision on the lead charge of assault with intent to injure, with the threatening and harassment charges to be served at the same time.<\/p>\n

She was convicted and discharged on the trespass charge and ordered to make a $500 emotional harm payment to the injured victim.<\/p>\n

Pike was now also subject to judicial monitoring, which meant her progress would be overseen by the judge.<\/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 victim, who spoke at the hearing, and who spoke on behalf of the other victim, said she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,17704,32034,1558,1550,6184,1061,8615,49781,85768,2245,1668,22263,42,6178,91,43,90,6185,49648,6302,312,39023,5161,43044,1516,6100,666,39545,40,38,41,39,20424,119120,6923,102,4576,4478,4741],"class_list":["post-500901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-assault","tag-assaulted","tag-been","tag-centre","tag-childhood","tag-children","tag-come","tag-dana","tag-daycare","tag-early","tag-front","tag-happened","tag-headlines","tag-mother","tag-nelson","tag-news","tag-on","tag-parent","tag-pike","tag-safety","tag-says","tag-sense","tag-sentenced","tag-shattered","tag-staff","tag-still","tag-struggling","tag-terms","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-violent","tag-violently","tag-what","tag-with","tag-work","tag-workers","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500901","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=500901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}