Appeal Court jails man for violence at petrol station [1]
Wednesday, June 1, 2022 - 20:05
The Court of Appeal has sent Penisimani Angilau to jail, for causing serious bodily harm to another man, when he hit him with a piece of timber fracturing his left hand at a petrol station in Vaini in 2021. The Appeal Court quashed Hon. Mr Justice Niu’s suspended sentence.
On 25 August, 2021 the respondent [Angilau] was convicted, after trial, of causing serious bodily harm to Matini Veatufunga and wilful damage, when he received a suspended sentence.
Hon. Mr Justice Niu on 22 October 2021 sentenced him to 12-months' imprisonment for both counts. The sentences were ordered to be served concurrently and were fully suspended for 12-months on conditions. The judge also declined to activate an extant suspended sentence and instead extended the original period of suspension for a further 6 months from 24 November 2020.
This resulted in the Attorney General appealing against Justice Niu's sentence.
The court heard on 27 March 2021, the complainant drove his car to a petrol station at Vaini.
There was an issue as to whether the respondent was there first and whether the complainant effectively 'pushed in' in front of the same bowser, to be served before the respondent. The respondent swore at the complainant and told him to back his vehicle away because the Respondent said that he was there first.
When the complainant refused to do so, the respondent got out of his vehicle with a length of 4x 2 inch timber, punched a man in the front passenger seat of the complainant's vehicle, smashed the side mirror of the complainant's vehicle, struck the complainant's left forearm, resulting in a fractured ulna, and then smashed the rear window of the Complainant's vehicle .
The complainant and his other passengers ran off.
The Appeal Court stated: "We agree with the appellant that the sentencing judge erred in his treatment of the provocation issue. There was no issue that even if provocation had been established, it was not a legal defence to the charges."
“However, we are not persuaded that, on a proper consideration of the evidence, there was any basis for finding any form of provocation sufficient to warrant full suspension of the sentences,
“The judge had described the complainant's conduct as unlawful. Yet, no law was identified.
“As the Director for Public Prosecution, Mr Lutui submitted, jumping the queue at a petrol station may be regarded as inconsiderate by social norms, but it is not unlawful in any criminal sense.
"It was always open to the station attendant not to serve the complainant until he joined the queue. In any event, the respondent's violent reaction to the perceived insult could never be condoned by a court. The judge's treatment of the issue and resulting sentence went very close to doing so.
“However, for the same reasons we consider the learned judge erred on the issue of provocation.”
The Appeal Court agreed that the suspended sentence should have been activated and added to the sentences for the index offending.
"Here, in order to give effect to that principle, and as credit for the community service the respondent has completed, we reduce the sentence for the index offending to 21 months imprisonment. Otherwise, in light of the respondent's previous conviction for violence, his breach of his most recent suspended sentence and his supply of methamphetamine to the complainant, we do not consider it appropriate to suspend any part of the resulting total period of incarceration of 30 months."
The appeal was allowed. The sentence of the Supreme Court was quashed. In subsitution, the respondent was sentenced to 21-months imprisonment.
In addition, his nine-months imprisonment was rescinded and that term is to be served in addition, ordered the Appeal Court.