Filipo maintains plea, sentenced to supervision
Otago Daily Times 3 November 2016
Wellington rugby player Losi Filipo has avoided jail and been sentenced to nine months of supervision.
Filipo this morning maintained his guilty plea for an assault on four people in Wellington.
Justice Collins said Filipo stomping on the first victim’s head was “a chilling act of violence” and could easily have killed the victim.
“The rights of the victims to see justice, the community to be protected, and the sentence to be a deterrent to similar acts must be paramount in the sentencing of serious acts of violence,” said director Bob McCoskrie.
“But just as vital are measures to prevent repeat-offending. The requirements for counselling for alcohol and violence are part of that solution.
“As a community, we are trying to say that violence is completely unacceptable – yet some of the sentences given by the courts are completely undermining that message. The previous offender-friendly sentence sent a dangerous message that we don’t value the protection of victims and the safety of the public in a case that involved significant violence towards both males and females.
“The earlier judgment also communicated that punishments and consequences will be determined by who you are rather than what you did,” he said.
“This is not about revenge as some will suggest. This is about an appropriate sentence which reflects the gravity of the crime, protects the public in the long-term, and communicates the revulsion that the public rightly has against these sorts of mindless acts – irrespective of who commits them.”
READ MORE: https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/filipo-maintains-plea-sentenced-supervision
