Husband re-sentenced and jailed for assaulting wife [1]
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - 19:38
Salesi Vea (29) was re-sentenced and jailed for four-months for assaulting his wife at Te'ekiu, after a Supreme Court judge quashed his suspended sentence imposed in the lower court.
Hon. Mr Justice Cooper re-sentenced him on 14 October at the Supreme Court in Nuku’alofa, in an appeal brought by the prosecution.
In allowing the appeal, he set aside the nine-months sentence, which was fully suspended for two-years imposed by Magistrate Tu'akalau on 14 July this year.
The facts were that on the night of 28 May this year, Mr. Vea got into an argument with his wife, accusing her of being unfaithful and threatened to cut her up.
The next morning, on the Sunday, they started to argue once more. She walked off and went to their main dwelling, but he pursued her, running after her, catching up, first he tried to slap her and then he punched her.
The judge said there must have been more to the incident than just that, for after he was arrested, he was charged with the offence of common assault, the particulars were said to be that he punched the back of her head and her right eye and to other parts of her body.
“The Crown appealed the sentence, firstly that there must always be a form of punishment and that a fully suspended sentence requires at least a community punishment order in tandem.
“But the main contention is that in any event the sentence is manifestly inadequate as it failed to properly take into account the level of violence and that there have been repeated assaults by Mr. Vea against his wife for which he has been prosecuted.”
“In addition, Mr. Vea has previous convictions, that included six offences of violence, verbal (said to be mental violence under the relevant section) and physical violence, against his wife, all mean that the point has long since been passed where it is appropriate to fully suspend a further offence of violence he has committed against her.
“In their pleading, the Crown identified that to suspend the sentence in the instant case fails to take into account the defendant's blatant disregard for the law. I agree.”
The judge said, given that the level of injuries was not so severe as to cause Mrs Vea to blackout, but acknowledging that his was also an attack aimed at her head, he concluded the starting point of four-months is appropriate.
He then suspended the last two-months of the four-months sentence on conditions, that included him completing a course in both drug and alcohol abuse and on domestic violence run by the Women and Children's Crisis Centre.