escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links for full page descriptions

Offender Databases Dion Whakarau

Dion Whakarau

Alias

.

Offences

Wounding a 20 year old Palmerston North woman with reckless disregard in February 2008
A knife thrown at her, causing the piercing of her brain, slicing her fingers
Was out on bail for common assault at the time

Victims

.

Offender Affiliations

.

Gang affiliations

Mongrel Mob

Age

Born 1991

Current Location

Prison

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to just 2 years 2 months in November 2008

Background
The Dominion Post | Saturday, 08 November 2008
A woman whose brain was pierced by a boning knife thrown from 11 metres away tried to pull it out, slicing her fingers. The 20-year-old from Palmerston North believed she was going to die as she was flown to Wellington Hospital with the blade embedded in her head, a court has been told. Dion Whakarau, now 18, pleaded guilty to wounding with reckless disregard. He had been drinking home-brew vodka at a party and became paranoid over text messages his girlfriend received.

He was told to leave, and returned drunk with the boning knife, which had a 13.5-centimetre blade, early on February 1. He was on the footpath in Fitzherbert Ave and the victim, his girlfriend's flatmate, was on the balcony on the second storey. She stood up on a deckchair to talk to him but he became enraged and threw the knife. The blade, penetrated eight millimetres into her brain.Emergency surgery removed the knife.

Judge Alastair Garland said the victim was deeply traumatised. "She tried to pull the knife out of her head herself but ended up cutting her fingers and hands," Judge Garland said. "She was convinced she was going to die." The woman had a fractured skull, suffered headaches and was constantly tired. "She lost her jobs, her income, her flat and her independence." Whakarau, who was in breach of his bail and serving a community sentence at the time, told a probation officer he was gutted that he had hurt the woman. Judge Garland sentenced him to two years and two months' jail.

---

Corrections and Additional Information
We endeavour to make this database as accurate as possible, but we are at the mercy of whatever information we can find in various online and offline archives. We rely on the public - that is, people like you - to fill in the gaps that we cannot. If you wish to submit additional information or a correction to this file CLICK HERE . Privacy: Trust policy is that all sources are treated as strictly confidential unless we are explicitly told otherwise. If you wish to see a file removed from this database certain conditions must be met by the offender set out HERE Note that this does NOT apply for those that are the primary offender in a murder, rape, or any sexual offending involving minors. We do not enter into correspondence regarding the guilt/innocence of offenders. Such correspondence is not responded to, especially if the offender concerned has a number of prior convictions

Back to Top