Tavalea Tupou (17) was sentenced to four-years imprisonment for stabbing another boy on the head with a sharp object, in a school fight in Nuku'alofa, last year.

Hon Mr Justice Niu sentenced the accused yesterday June 16, at the Supreme Court, after finding him guilty on causing grievous bodily harm to Wesley Vi (18).

He said the accused appeared to be very much involved in the fights that have happened between the schools, especially between Liahona High School and Tonga College.

During the fight on February 16, 2019 the victim from Tonga College received the stab wound, which penetrated his skull and required surgery on the same day. He was hospitalised for some two to three-weeks.

Attacker

The judge said it was clear that while the accused was attending Tonga College as a student in February 2019, he attacked and stabbed the victim in the present case, who was a Tonga College student.

It was not because he mistook him to be a Liahona High School student, but because he was wearing the red T-shirt and grey shorts commonly worn by Tonga College students for their sports, said the judge.

"You knew he was a Tonga College student at least by the clothes he wore. Yet you went at him with the knife, you told the probation officer you always carried with you, and stabbed him with great 
force at his head, so great that the knife penetrated the cap he was also wearing and also his scalp and then his cranium to leave a hole in his skull."

During the trial, the victim stated in his evidence that the accused was from Liahona High School because he had been with other Liahona boys who had teased them, the Tonga College boys at the bus stop by the waterfront on the Saturday before this incident occurred.

The accused did not deny or give evidence to this.

The judge then accepted, that the accused was siding with Liahona boys in early 2019 to cause trouble against Tonga College boys, while he was attending Tonga College as a student at that time.

"You confirmed that by stabbing Wesley Vi on the following Saturday. I can only conclude that you did that to a Tonga College student to make out to the Tonga College students that a Liahona student did it to him so that the rivalry and fights between the two schools would continue. That is proved by your subsequent continual involvement in the school fights in the later part of 2019, as your head tutor has told the probation officer."

The judge said any person who participated in or encouraged fights between youths in the community, and especially between schools ought to be sentenced to serve imprisonment sentences so that there is no longer any such needless violence, injury or death amongst the youths of this country.

"There is need for deterrence to bring such senseless violence to a halt."

Serious concerns 

From the probation report, the Court heard of serious concerns regarding the accused.

His mother said ever since he entered Tonga College his behavior began to turn bad. He was living away from home with friends and had been absent and missing classes.

The head tutor said that he entered Tonga College at Form 3 level in 2018 and then he withdrew from school early in the first term of 2019.

The accused returned to school again this year in a TVET study program, but since the first term he missed a lot of classes by failing to attend school altogether. He had now failed to complete the requirements of the course taken.

However, the greatest concern was that as the Tonga College head tutor said in 2019, the accused was identified to be very much involved in attacking and starting up school fights against Tonga College students around the areas of Pea and Ha'ateiho, after school hours, said the judge.

The Prosecution said the only two things in the accused's favour was that he had no previous conviction and that he was still young and had a chance to rehabilitate. 

“Against that, he used a weapon, a sharp object, which the accused told the probation officer was a knife, and that the wound was severe as it was an injury to this victim's head committed in a fight between two schools and he showed no remorse for what he has done.”

The accused was then sentenced to four-years imprisonment but with the final 12-months suspended for two-years on conditions, that includes probation.

The judge directed the Commissioner of Prisons to keep young offenders of similar age separated from older offenders with lengthier and more serious criminal histories.

Meanwhile, this is the second student involved in a school violence to be sent to prison this year.