\u201cAre you with me? I\u2019m either gonna stab you or kill them,\u201d Clarke told his friend, shortly before stabbing the victim, leaving him with wounds up to 3cm deep.<\/p>\n
Clarke appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court on a reduced charge of wounding with intent to injure.<\/p>\n
He was originally charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n
Hostile and aggressive<\/p>\n
On February 20, 2024, the victim was introduced to Clarke through a mutual friend at his Willoughby St house in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
They started drinking while Clarke smoked meth and cannabis.<\/p>\n
Clarke and his friend began arguing, with Clarke becoming \u201chostile and aggressive\u201d, but the friend was able to calm things down.<\/p>\n
About 7pm, the friend and the victim went into town.<\/p>\n
The trio met back at the friend\u2019s house about 8pm, and the friend noticed his phone was missing.<\/p>\n
The friend and victim went back into town, and about 9pm, Clarke walked past Speights Ale House and found his friend. <\/p>\n
He told him his phone was stolen by the victim.<\/p>\n
Holding either a set of keys or a pair of scissors, he said he was going to look for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cAre you with me?\u201d Clarke asked his friend. \u201cI\u2019m either gonna stab you or kill them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The friend complied and walked with Clarke along Anglesea St before they saw the victim.<\/p>\n
By now, Clarke was in an \u201cerratic and elevated state\u201d and moved towards the victim with his hand raised in a stabbing motion.<\/p>\n
He then stabbed him in the back, causing four stab wounds.<\/p>\n
Clarke then stood back and told him with a smirk, \u201cthat\u2019s really gonna hurt in a minute\u201d.<\/p>\n
After being challenged by the victim\u2019s friend, Clarke ran off.<\/p>\n
The victim and his friend walked to a nearby bus shelter, where the victim became lightheaded and passed out.<\/p>\n
Clarke was found on Tristram St later that night and arrested.<\/p>\n
As for the weapon, he told police he didn\u2019t have any scissors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used my keys,\u201d he said, and claimed he was acting in self-defence.<\/p>\n
The victim was taken to Waikato Hospital and admitted to the high dependency unit, where he had a drain placed on his chest in case his lung collapsed.<\/p>\n
The victim stayed there for three days, being treated for four 2 to 3cm deep stab wounds that passed through muscle, puncturing his right lung.<\/p>\n
Clarke had earlier accepted an indication from Judge Stephen Clark of 20 months\u2019 jail, and counsel Martin Dillon asked the judge for an extra 5% to 10% in credits for his client\u2019s personal mitigating features, including his now diagnosed mental health condition.<\/p>\n
Judge Clark agreed to adopt a small discount, and sentenced Clarke to nine months\u2019 home detention.<\/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":"\u201cAre you with me? I\u2019m either gonna stab you or kill them,\u201d Clarke told his friend, shortly before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,60504,1863,13177,20556,3011,1345,78,5158,283955,111,43,139,69,5161,15163,14005,61,283956],"class_list":["post-576748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-associate","tag-back","tag-clarke","tag-detention","tag-four","tag-home","tag-in","tag-man","tag-methdup","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sentenced","tag-stabbing","tag-times","tag-to","tag-tre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576748","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=576748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}