Paeroa man accused of acid throwing

A Paeroa man is on trial in the District Court at Tauranga after dousing his partner in petrol. File photo.

A Paeroa man is on trial in the District Court at Tauranga, accused of dousing his partner in petrol and threatening to set her alight.

Posini Munu, 44, is facing trial on one charge each of acid throwing, wounding with intent to injure and threatening to kill.

The charges stem from two separate incidents at their Paeroa home last year.

During the first day of the trial on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Sam Davidson said after dousing Fenton in petrol, Munu then allegedly produced a lighter and flicked it menacingly as if to threaten setting her ablaze.

Shielded by a screen, Fenton detailed that alleged attack and another, Stuff reports.

She said her relationship with Manu had become rockier and rockier.

In July he had accused her of sleeping around with a friend in order to borrow his car.

"I told him to grow up," she said.

"He started getting more violent and asked me to go outside. I didn't go outside because I knew it would get worse. That's when he headbutted me."

Fenton said the injury caused her to bleed from her nose profusely. She tended to her wound, went to sleep and said she woke up to Munu beside her tending to her wound.

On August 20 the domestic violence allegedly escalated when another argument led to petrol being poured on her while she was in her kitchen.

"At first I thought it was water until it hit me," Fenton said.

"Petrol hit me in the face, it was thrown in front of me."

Davidson said other witnesses at the scene will reveal a lighter was used to make threats to Fenton.

Munu has pleaded not guilty to all charges and defence lawyer Kaye Davies said the attacks simply did not occur.

"He did not headbutt Ms Fenton between July 9-24 or at any time," she said.

Davies said Munu argued with Fenton in the kitchen and at the time he was carrying a 20 litre petrol can in his right hand.

The argument caused motions to be made with his hands which could have resulted in petrol ending up on Fenton.

Davies asked the jury to carefully listen to the testimonies of the witnesses as the details didn't match up.

"Fenton will not be able to tell you about any flicking of a lighter," she said.

"There was no threat made. Take the evidence and really listen to their version of events."

- Stuff

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4 comments

Scary stuff

Posted on 22-06-2017 11:47 | By waiknot

Assuming he is guilty, this not 1 isolated event. Can society afford to such a person to be freely moving about. Sentencing needs to reflect this assuming of course guilt.


Some cultures...

Posted on 22-06-2017 13:38 | By morepork

... use petrol and acid to defend the "honour" of the family. Or they believe a wife should not survive her husband. Modern governments are moving to stamp out these barbaric and ignorant practices that degrade women and violate the rules of Human decency, but it is a hard struggle, against ingrained generations of ignorance and superstition. What is absolutely certain is that we don't want these practices to be part of our culture and Courts need to make this very clear. Anyone who lives in our society must be left in no doubt that actions like this are not tolerated. I think that Citizenship should be revoked (as well as any other penalty imposed by the Court). It is simply anti-Kiwi.


Kiwi as

Posted on 22-06-2017 16:34 | By maildrop

I'm sure I've heard a number of reports stating that New Zealand has one of worst rates of domestic abuse (as well as child abuse) in the developed world. In fact, there is an ad on TV at the moment. Cultures in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Any assaults shouldn't be tolerated, whether acid or fists.


Assumptions galore

Posted on 22-06-2017 18:24 | By maildrop

So you have assumed he is not Kiwi, either by birth or citizenship. You have assumed he is a citizen of another country, so could be decamped to this place, in your ideal world. Even if this crime was deemed serious enough to return him to that country, if it even exists, there is no such law in NZ that allows it. You know what they say about assumptions?


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