Swade James Davis, 29, postured up in the dock at the conclusion of his Dunedin District Court sentencing yesterday, made some foul-mouthed comments before attacking the police officer.
Court security, Corrections officers and police swarmed the room to restrain him and the court was hurriedly cleared.
The court heard earlier how Davis travelled to a Corstorphine address with 26-year-old Braedyn Erni (aka Wereta), 19-year-old Eugene McCarthy and another man on June 11 last year.
As the three of them walked to the door, Davis pulled out a baseball bat and called out a name which prompted the resident to open the front door.
He and Erni, a deportee from Australia, forced their way inside, the latter closing the curtains while his co-defendant demanded $500 from the man.
McCarthy waited by the door.
A blow with the bat sent the victim to the floor and the duo laid into the man with kicks and punches, leaving him with a broken arm.
When the defendants were unable to find anything of value in the home, Davis berated him.
The men made a hasty exit, taking the victim’s bank card and a key, when they noticed a CCTV system, which had filmed their arrival.
But they left with the power unit rather than the hard drive, meaning police had access to the footage.
While Davis was arrested just a couple of days later, albeit aggressively resisting police, Erni — his face covered on CCTV — was harder to identify.
Three months after the home invasion, he was at the hospital where his counsel Brian Kilkelly said he was having a "drug-psychosis episode of some sort".
Outside, Erni approached his victim — an Otago Daily Times staff member who had been visiting his wife — asking for a light.
The man directed him to nearby taxi drivers, but when he turned around, the defendant punched him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.
"The blow you struck against him was a cowardly punch from behind," Judge Jim Large said.
Erni grabbed the victim’s bum bag containing personal items and left the scene.
The judge said the impact on the victim of the aggravated burglary and the street robbery had been profound.
"I accept you may have been meth-fuelled or whatever, but your actions have real consequences for real people," he said.
The victim from the first incident had been diagnosed with PTSD and had to quit work because of his paranoia, while the ODT staffer continues to suffer with the effects of concussion.
Despite that, the ODT staffer sat down with Erni and accepted an apology at a restorative justice conference, "humanity" which prompted praise from the judge.
Erni was jailed for six years one month and Davis for five years one month — lengthy prison terms that were "really sad for young men" but necessary, Judge Large said.
McCarthy, a first offender, received three months’ community detention and 18 months’ intensive supervision for being a accessory to the aggravated burglary.
A fourth man who remained outside the address while the incident took place will be sentenced in October.
