Dear Judge Glubb,
Let me say at the outset that I am against sending people to prison unless there are compelling reasons for doing so. I would much rather New Zealand's judges did not use remand and custodial sentences for young offenders as often as you all do.
I know that people, and especially young people, can behave in uncharacteristic ways when under the influence of alcohol or drugs and/or hormones, and/or due to peer pressure or mob mentality.
Given a criminal record can have profound implications for a person's future, I accept that in some instances a discharge without conviction, and granting of permanent name suppression are warranted.
All of this is why, in principle, I approve of your ruling in the case of the young man who, at the age of twenty, punched a woman who is old enough to be his grandmother, in the face, causing her bodily and psychological harm.
According to the reports I've read, you described the offending in question as "moderately serious" given the blows were to the head.
The outcome for the victim was a fairly minor physical injury; the psychological harm is much harder to assess but importantly, the assault had the very real potential to cause serious, possibly fatal injuries.
That fact should have featured in your sentencing, if only to use the opportunity to send a message to all men who punch women, and to young men who punch anyone in the head but especially old women, that it is an extremely dangerous act.
You may not be aware of it but men on average punch 160% harder than women. A man punching a woman is seldom an even contest; a young man punching an old woman is about as uneven as it gets.
That aside, women's ability to withstand the force of a blow to the head is significantly less than men on average because of sex-based differences in the musculature of the male and the female posterior cervical spine.
Add to that, the probability of age-related osteoporosis in a 70 year-old woman, and any blow from a man, especially one in the grip of adrenaline and testosterone disinhibition, is likely to result in fractures. A blow to the head could result in a catastrophic cervical fracture.
The young man's defence was that he is "neurodiverse", ie he has ADHD and mild autism, which make him more prone to acting impulsively.
However, despite his reduced impulse control, he had got to the the age of twenty without any prior arrests or convictions which suggests either he must have had a sequestered life, or controlled himself pretty well, or there was a trigger in that situation, ie the anger he felt on behalf of trans people who he thought were being attacked by the mainly older, female rally attendees.
Whatever one's opinion of the victim vis-à-vis her reasons for being at the rally, her actions in challenging a person who was removing lines placed to delineate the rally and the protesters, her refusal to engage in restorative justice, or the use of the case in the on-going arguments about trans and women's rights, nothing can reasonably be said to mitigate such an assault.
It's as reasonable to argue that the young man's action, far from being impulsive, was somewhat calculated in that it is highly unlikely he would have lost control of his fists if the person he was confronting had been a large, muscly man.
It is noteworthy that in 2014, you were faced with another twenty year-old man who was charged with a similar assault.
In the grip of extreme alcohol and adrenaline/testosterone disinhibition, and after a domestic dispute, three police officers attempted to arrest him. In the course of the arrest he punched a detective in the face causing a small cut and a black eye.
The two defendants were the same sex and age; they both suffered a serious loss of impulse control, and there were analogous injuries caused to their victims.
So, what was so different that the young man in 2014 deserved to be sent to prison for thirteen months, with no reporting restrictions, while the young man in 2024 got discharged without conviction and was granted permanent name suppression?
Was it being drunk as opposed to being neurodiverse?
Was it resisting arrest by three police officers and in the process punching one of them in the eye, as opposed to launching an unprovoked attack on a 70 year-old woman?
Was it being working class and brown skinned as opposed to middle class and white skinned?
Or was it having prior convictions – which of course may well have been connected to being working class and brown skinned?
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