A judge has lambasted a young man who punched his pregnant partner in a scuffle outside their house, labelling him a “coward”.

“He bashed up a 30-week pregnant woman, what a coward,” Judge Noel Cocurullo said while sentencing Cameron Russell James Bargh in the Hamilton District Court last week.

Cocurullo was addressing Bargh’s counsel, Hayley Carson, as she tried to push for a sentence of community detention instead of a more strict home detention sentence.

“Your behaviour was cowardly,” the judge told the 23-year-old. “Terrible.”

“She was 30 weeks pregnant. He beats her around the head and the body. I’m struggling to get to community detention.”

After getting confirmation the baby was eventually born without any issues, the judge replied; “There’s his Lotto ticket right there”.

‘The argument’

The punches stemmed out of a fight the former couple had at their Hamilton flat about 9pm on December 21, 2022.

Bargh was angry and began throwing things around the house, frightening the victim.

He then picked up a bassinet and threw it at her before smashing a bedroom window.

Bargh tried to leave the property but the victim stopped him outside their neighbour’s house.

It was then he punched her multiple times in the head and upper body as she screamed out for help.

She received bruising to her arms and head.

‘He’s turned his life around’

Carson explained her client punched the victim as she had grabbed his leg and he was trying to get away from her.

She pushed for a community detention sentence as Bargh was “one of my success stories” as he had managed to “turn his life around” in a relatively short space of time.

That had been since he was put on an electronically-monitored sentence in May last year.

Before that, he had continued to offend, racking up several driving while disqualified charges, fleeing from police in Cambridge and Hamilton, crashing his car while drunk in Hamilton, and crashing through a fence on a rural road in Tauwhare, Cambridge - all between June 2021 and February last year.

Bargh did have his bail relaxed so he could work and attend the gym but he’d not incurred any breaches in over a year, she said.

She also asked for his driving disqualification to be back-dated as barring young people from driving was “extremely problematic”.

‘More good luck that baby not affected’

Judge Cocurullo told Bargh it was “more good luck than good management” that the baby was born without any issues.

“You got so bad with your offending that a judge had to take the step, in May last year, of [putting you on] a 24-hour curfew.

“I couldn’t believe how you got to that.

“You should have ended up in custody given your repetitive offending while on bail.”

Judge Cocurullo agreed with submissions from police prosecutor Georgia Edge that he should take a 16-month start point, plus an extra six months for the extra charges and another two months for offending while on bail.

Judge Cocurullo accepted he’d behaved while on electronically-monitored bail, and the offending happened quite some time ago but he labelled the assault on his former partner, “pretty disrespectful”.

“That simply means I need to send a message that it would not be tolerated and condemn it that it was totally wrong.”

He said community detention would be a “bridge too far” and instead issued a sentence of three months home detention along with a final warning on 13 charges including the lead charge of assault on a person in a family relationship.

“You can take it as read that if you return to court you will go to jail.”

He also disqualified Bargh from driving for two years but backdated it to May 23, last year.

The judge also issued a protection order against the victim.