A former Te K\u0101ika youth-justice staffer who attacked a teenager while on his way to work has failed to dodge a conviction.<\/p>\n
Allan McKenzie Haua, 35, appeared in the Dunedin District Court this afternoon after admitting a charge of assault with intent to injure and making a false statement to police.<\/p>\n
A discharge without conviction application was filed by the defendant on the basis that a black mark on his previously clean criminal record would have an unduly negative effect on his job prospects.<\/p>\n
But Judge Emma Parsons refused the application, ruling the potential consequences did not outweigh the gravity of the crimes.<\/p>\n
The court heard the defendant lost his job at the multi-million-dollar health and social-service provider following the October incident.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Te K\u0101ika was awarded a contract by Oranga Tamariki for more than $1m to run a four-bed youth-remand home in Abbotsford\u2019s Will St but the operation was shut down in March last year after 11 allegations of abuse were raised with the government agency.<\/p>\n
Seven of those claims were later substantiated after an investigation.<\/p>\n
A broader Oranga Tamariki assessment of the charity\u2019s operation at Will St was \u201congoing\u201d, a spokeswoman told the Otago Daily Times.<\/p>\n
Court documents noted Haua knew his victim through his employment and was walking to work on October 26 when he encountered the boy, who was riding a moped.<\/p>\n
The teen drove past the defendant then looped back, approaching him from the rear.<\/p>\n
He verbally abused Haua, using a racial and sexual slur, which the judge described as \u201chighly derogatory and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery particular and offensive words to provoke a reaction,\u201d counsel Liam Collins argued.<\/p>\n
The boy raised the visor on his helmet to reveal his identity and the defendant gave chase.<\/p>\n
The victim tried to accelerate away but Haua grabbed him by the hood of his jersey and pulled him to the ground.<\/p>\n
While straddling the teenager, he delivered up to 15 punches to the head and body, then stomped on him \u201cwith significant force\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court heard it was Haua who called police, claiming he was the one that was assaulted.<\/p>\n
He even signed a formal written statement to that effect but when police obtained CCTV footage of the incident, the truth was exposed.<\/p>\n
Haua later told officers he had \u201cpanicked\u201d and was unsure why he had lied.<\/p>\n
The victim suffered grazes to his legs and head, and a swollen right elbow, a police summary said.<\/p>\n
Mr Collins told the court Haua had unsuccessfully applied for 20 jobs since the charges were laid.<\/p>\n
The defendant would not work with youth in future and was seeking a position in the trades.<\/p>\n
While he waited, Haua had been volunteering his time to work with disabled men, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Judge Parsons noted he had a glowing reference from those endeavours and had also completed a stopping-violence course.<\/p>\n
However, she said the challenges Haua would face in finding employment were a \u201cnatural and normal\u201d consequence of his convictions.<\/p>\n
The defendant was sentenced to 40 hours\u2019 community work and ordered to pay the victim $80.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Te K\u0101ika youth-justice staffer who attacked a teenager while on his way to work has failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-547387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547387","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=547387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}