Sentencing Liam Osborne, 31, and Luke Holden, 27, in the Invercargill District Court yesterday, Judge Russell Walker said the pair had been drinking for 12 hours straight when the incident occurred.
About 12.30am on December 22, 2022, Holden switched on a concrete compressor outside the victim’s Brunswick St house.
Leaving his 4-year-old son inside, the victim went out and reduced the machine to an idle, but before he could work out how to switch it off, Holden reappeared and returned it to full throttle.
Osborne then returned to the scene and the pair wrestled the victim to the ground.
As Holden pinned one of the victim’s arms behind his back, Osborne launched a sustained flurry of punches and kicks to the victim’s head.
Following a three-day jury trial in May, the pair were found guilty of charges of injuring with intent to injure.
Judge Walker said the victim suffered concussion, deep cuts and severe bruising to his head and torso, and later needed counselling to deal with the emotional and psychological impact of the attack.
He felt "hyper-vigilant", even inside his home, and his confidence had been "literally smashed out of him".
"He was alone, at the end of his driveway, in the middle of the night.
"The door of his home was open, where his small son was sleeping inside."
He rejected the argument of Holden’s counsel, Bryony Shackell, that he was less to blame for the attack because he did not land any blows.
"You assisted each other as a joint venture.
"It was just as well for the two of you [the victim] wasn’t more injured than he was."
From a starting point of 20 months’ imprisonment, he had considered a substitution sentence of home detention for both men.
However, that would be a barrier to employment, particularly for Osborne, who expected to soon need a new job because his business was "facing liquidation".
Instead he sentenced Osborne to five months’ community detention, acknowledging his willingness to pay the victim $2000 reparation for emotional harm.
Judge Walker also acknowledged Osborne’s steps towards rehabilitation by undergoing psychological counselling and giving up alcohol.
He imposed the higher sentence of six months’ community detention for Holden, noting he had not taken full responsibility for his part in the offending or offered to pay reparation to the victim.
