Yesterday, unbeknown to the victims' whānau, patched gang member Jury Te Nahu, 26, pleaded guilty to common assault on the boy's father and assault on the child. He offered the victim $250. Te Nahu was sentenced to nine months' supervision.
In May, the Herald revealed the Hawke's Bay 3-year-old was covered in blood and bleeding from his mouth and nose following an incident at Cornwall Park, Hastings, where Te Nahu assaulted the boy's dad, also hitting the toddler who was in his father's arms.
The Hastings District Court was told yesterday Te Nahu had offered $250 so the boy could be taken on a trip somewhere. But the mum said the sentencing was not carried out under the tikanga of restorative justice, which includes kanohi to kanohi - face-to-face hui.
The mum said that the $250 payment was "news to me. I don't want his stinking money. He can't even apologise for his actions".
The charges related to the May incident when Te Nahu objected to the presence of the boys' parents in Cornwall Park. The mother was heavily pregnant at the time
This morning, the toddler's mum said after reading yesterday's court report, she was sickened at the money offer and the gangster's lack of remorse.
"I had no knowledge at all that he was being sentenced. I've been waiting for weeks for an outcome and the only way I found out about this is through the media," the mother, who the Herald has decided not to name, said.
"We weren't in court and no one else was on my behalf either, only because we had no knowledge at all that he was even being sentenced.
"The only contact that was made came from the justice department a couple weeks after the incident, regarding me making a victim impact statement. I had not heard nothing from then on.
"He never offered $250 and hasn't even offered an apology. We won't be accepting anything from him because money is nothing compared to the scarred memory and suffering my son has from his actions."
Te Nahu hit the boy's father, who was holding his son at the time and fell.
Photos later showed the boy bleeding from the mouth and nose with blood over his shirt.
At sentencing yesterday, Judge Geoff Rea asked why Te Nahu thought he should be "policing" Cornwall Park.
Defence counsel Laurie McMaster said it was "an incident he now regrets".
"He knows he handled it badly. This is not his normal behaviour," she said.
"He accepts he should have removed himself from the park and not behave the way he did."
McMaster said Te Nahu had offered to pay the $250 in instalments. She also said he had started a course that teaches participants how to avoid violence.
Judge Rea sentenced Te Nahu to nine months' supervision with conditions to be set by a probation officer and said he expected that would include completing the course, run by Dove Hawke's Bay.
He ordered an emotional harm payment of $250 to be paid before December 31.
-By Joseph Los'e
