A man who stomped on his partner’s head after an argument about cellphone data has failed to have his sentence reduced on appeal.
John Henwood (39) was jailed for two years and eight months when he was sentenced before the Dunedin District Court in August.
However, the Hastings man challenged the outcome in the High Court at Dunedin last month, claiming that it should have been 25 months behind bars.
On March 15, Henwood and his partner were in Middlemarch visiting family.
He was serving a sentence of intensive supervision at the time, for earlier assaults against his girlfriend and he had a long history of domestic violence, including breach of protection orders, threatening to kill, intimidation and assault with a blunt instrument, Justice Rachel Dunningham said.
When an argument over the lack of data on Henwood’s phone began, he quickly resorted to violence.
He punched the woman through an open car window then followed that up with repeated blows to the head and body.
Knowing his fiery temper, the victim fled to a nearby hotel from which staff called police.
Though the woman was advised to remain, she returned to the scene, where Henwood shoulder-barged her to the ground then kicked and stomped on her head.
The victim got to her feet but Henwood again shoved her over and the kicking resumed.
The defendant was arrested 20km out of town while his partner was taken to the local medical centre and then to Dunedin Hospital.
Her injuries included tenderness to her forehead and skull, and bleeding from her ear, consistent with a burst ear drum or jaw fracture.
Counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner argued the sentencing judge should have afforded her client greater credit for his guilty plea, the fact he attended a meeting to apologise to the victim and for a cultural report.
It recorded how Henwood suffered from childhood exposure to violence, drugs, alcohol and gangs, which likely affected his world view.
Justice Dunningham agreed; had she been sentencing, she would have knocked more time off the man’s prison term.
However, she balanced that against a lenient approach taken by the judge when it came to Henwood’s previous convictions and the fact he offended while subject to a sentence.
Justice Dunningham also acknowledged the man’s apparent lack of remorse when interviewed about the episode.
Henwood denied stomping and kicking the victim and said he only pleaded guilty to ‘‘fast track the court process’’.
His appeal was dismissed.
