Dunedin resident Chris McLaughlin said the alleged offender was of an age to know better and he hoped the case would go to court.
Mr McLaughlin was in bed at his Forbury Rd home about 10.10pm on Saturday when he heard footsteps outside the house, followed by shouting and banging on the front door.
When he opened the door — a decision he now regrets — Mr McLaughlin was faced with an intoxicated 27-year-old man on the porch.
The man — who police say had spent the day at a golf tournament — then forced his way in, telling Mr McLaughlin it was his mother’s place and demanding to know who he was.
Mr McLaughlin told the man he had the wrong house and tried to hold him back, before he was punched hard in the head.
"I didn’t see it coming," Mr McLaughlin said.
He was startled and took a few steps back, but the man kept coming
"He basically looked like he was setting out to beat me up, well and proper," he said.
He fled, with the man chasing him and yelling.
Barefoot, wearing only underwear, and without his phone, Mr McLaughlin made it to his next-door neighbour’s house and asked them to call police.
Mr McLaughlin returned to his home and discovered the intruder had turned on all the lights.
When police arrived, the man was banging on the door of his other next-door neighbour, who was also home alone.
The offender yelled threats and obscenities, Mr McLaughlin said.
He pointed police to the man, who encouraged them to come over and denied assaulting Mr McLaughlin before being arrested.
Mr McLaughlin later had trouble sleeping and experienced nightmares.
The next day at work, he made it an hour through his shift before he started to crumble.
Mr McLaughlin was diagnosed with a concussion and ordered to take a week off work, which he described as "not ideal", given he worked at a small retail store which was busy due to Christmas.
Everything in Mr McLaughlin’s life had been coasting along quite nicely until the punch that "completely derailed me", he said.
Police told him they wanted him to refer to the matter to a Te Pae Oranga iwi community panel, but when they visited him on Monday he told them he wanted the matter to go to court.
If the alleged assailant was younger he would have felt more lenient, but the man, who apparently had no criminal background, was old enough to know right from wrong, he said.
"I think justice needs to be served on this occasion for him ... What’s to say that he hasn’t done this heaps of time before and just hasn’t been caught," Mr McLaughlin said.
Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, said the incident was still being investigated and no final decision had yet been made on charges.
