Three men received suspended sentences and one was discharged on conditions, at the Supreme Court in an assault of a soldier at Havelu in September 2018.

The charges related to the complainant Lehopoame Tu'utafaiva, a solider who was involved in an altercation with the accused.

In December last year after trial, Hon Mr Justice Niu found Walter Disney Fangatua guilty of serious causing bodily harm, when he struck the complainant with a hoe blade, injuring his head.

He also found Lisiate Fonua and Sione Ma'u Niusini guilty of assault, when they punched and kicked the complainant repeatedly.

A fourth accused, Semisi Tu’ineau who was also charged with assault pleaded guilty.

Sentencing

On March 11, Justice Niu sentenced Fangatua to 16-months imprisonment, and three-months each for Fonua and Niusini.

These sentences were fully suspended for two-years on conditions, they are not to offend and must undertake the alcohol awareness course at the Salvation Army.

Tu'ineau who pleaded guilty, was found by the judge to have shown true remorse for what he had done.

He was discharged conditionally, without sureties to be of good behaviour, and if breached (this condition) within five-months, he will be brought back for sentencing.

The judge suspended the sentences after agreeing with the Crown Prosecutor's recommendations, that the accused sentences be fully suspended as laid down by the Court of Appeal in R v Mo'unga [1998] Tonga LR 15.

Drink-up

The Court heard the assault occured from a drink up at a soldier's house.

Justice Niu said, it was the complainant and his soldier friends who provoked the violence.

During the drinking at the soldier's house, one soldier was slapping Fonua on the back of the head and questioning him, which finally caused Fonua to leave, as the soldier had intended.

While, another soldier was literally forcing Niusini to drink a full glass of liquor empty, which he did. Niusini spewed right there on the floor of the house and was told to go outside, as the soldier had intended.

The judge, said both Fonua and Niusini were and anyone, especially in their conditions, would have been angered by the treatment they had been given and so one of them must have thrown the rock at the bonnet of the car parked at the front of the soldier's house and they then ran away to Tu’ineau’s place.

The soldiers then rightly assumed that the two boys had thrown the rock and they gave chase. They were angered at the two boys, especially, after they had invited them to join their drinking.

“As I had said in my ruling, the soldiers had the right to give chase and apprehend Fonua and Niusini for the offence of damaging the car, but they breached that right when they caught Fonua and beat him up instead. They had no right to do that,” he said.

They (soldiers) ought to have brought him and take him to the police station, where he may be charged with the appropriate offence, said Justice Niu.

Nevertheless, the judge told the accused, they had no lawful justification for doing what they did to the complainant.

"If drunkenness was a lawful excuse, people can just get drunk and then go and beat up an enemy or a person they hate and then claim that they were drunk and be acquitted. Where would our society be then except lawlessness and disorder. Drunkenness is not an excuse."