An Invercargill man produced a noose in front of his partner and child when she told him she was leaving him.
Rahui Paul Taia, 42, was sentenced to two months’ home detention in the Invercargill District Court this week for the psychological and emotional abuse last August.
The court heard while a protection order was in place, Taia was at his partner’s home where she told him to leave multiple times, and he became angry about their separation.
In the morning, when she came back into her bedroom, she turned on the light, which again angered the defendant, and he continued to berate her while she was getting her daughter ready.
When the woman came home later, she found the man sleeping on the couch and started packing a suitcase to leave with her daughter, the police summary said.
After the young girl came home from school there was another confrontation, and Taia produced a noose made from an extension cord as they were leaving.
The woman was holding her daughter in her arms.
In court, defence counsel Paige Noorland said the offending, though inherently serious, showed her client "hitting rock bottom and crying out for help".
A letter from the victim in support of the defendant said that it was "unfair that we both inflicted psychological abuse on each other, but he is the only one who has been charged for it".
She said the only reason she enforced the protection order was because she had strong concerns for his mental wellbeing.
In hearing this, a woman became emotional at the back of the court.
The victim in her statement also said that she felt "drained" by his manipulation and his anger had started to rub off on his daughter.
"Which makes for very sad reading," Judge Russell Walker said.
Judge Walker noted during sentencing that Taia had four family violence convictions going back eight years — one for which he was imprisoned in 2020.
A psychological report before the court said the defendant had a traumatic childhood.
It had been "a torturous journey through the system to this point", Taia said.
During sentencing the judge said the three breaches of a protection order counted as "quite serious emotional abuse".
He gave the man a sentence reduction for his background and remorse, landing on a sentence of home detention.
