A Liahona High School student has been found guilty of causing serious bodily harm to a student from Tonga College during a fight in February last year.
The Supreme Court was told that on February 16 he stabbed a student during a fight at Kolofo’ou.
In his report on the case, Judge Niu, presiding, said the Liahona student stabbed Wesley in head, the blow penetrating his skull.
The injured student spent two weeks in hospital during which time the wound was drained and the scalp stitched together. He was then discharged and told he had to take care of his health for two years so the hole in his skull would close up.
However, a year later the injured student said he could still feel the hole in his skull . He said that he could still feel his head throbbing when he ran or exercised, and that if he rubbed the spot on his head where the hole was, he could hear it in his ears like the rubbing of a microphone with one’s finger.
The court was told that the accused would not give evidence and would not call any witness.
Counsel for the defence argued that eyewitness testimony only established that the Liahona student chose to be involved in the fighting and was injured when he collided with the accused.
He said it did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused wilfully and without lawful justification stabbed the complainant in the head with a sharp object.
The Tonga College student said he was standing with the witness and another friend under the south mango tree on Digicel Square at the north-eastern corner of Wellington Road and Taufa’ahau Road when the fight broke out on the road between Narottam store and the Chinese restaurant on Wellington Road.
He said that he saw Tonga College boys in the fight and he ran to where the vehicle he had come on was parked. As he ran between those vehicles, the accused was coming from the east side and they crashed into each other. When they parted from each other, he felt blood spurting from his head and flowing down his face. He said he fell down and another boy led him away to the market from where the police took him to hospital,
While he was at the hospital, the accused also arrived at the hospital to treat a cut which he had sustained to his hand. He said that he told the police the accused was the one who had injured him.
The police then arrested the accused and asked him what he had done to him. He said the accused did not speak, just held up his hand above his head and moved it from the back to the front and then downwards in a stabbing manner. He said that the accused was also mumbling something unintelligible. He said that the police then took the accused away.
He said that he was still wearing the cap and that it had a hole in it where the injury to his head was. The police took the cap with them as evidence.
“Considering all those evidence, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the complainant received the injury which he sustained when he came into collision with the accused
“Defence counsel did not question or challenge the complainant about that evidence.
“I must accept it as an admission by the accused that he had caused the injury.
“Accordingly, I find the accused guilty.”
