Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Preventive detention sentence quashed

Updated at 9:37 pm on 3 September 2010

The Court of Appeal has quashed a sentence of preventive detention imposed on a Hawke's Bay man convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Joseph Rikki Pritchard was sentenced in the High Court in Napier, along with Patrick Shaun Edmonds, after being found guilty of attacking a man at a gang headquarters in Hastings in June 2008.

The victim suffered serious injuries and spent time in the intensive care units of Hawke's Bay and Wellington hospitals.

The lawyers for both prisoners appealed against the sentences of preventive detention on the grounds they were manifestly excessive and wrong in principle.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Edmonds' appeal, but agreed to quash Pritchard's sentence and replace it with nine years in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of six years.

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