Man sent to jail for kissing stranger wins $450k compo

AuthorRic Stevens Open Justice
Published date01 October 2022
Publication titleDaily Post, The (Rotorua, New Zealand)
In a High Court decision released this week, Justice Rebecca Ellis said a seven-year sentence for indecent assault over the kiss was a “grossly disproportionate punishment”

She awarded damages for a breach of the Bill of Rights Act.

Daniel Clinton Fitzgerald, who has a history of mental health issues, kissed the woman and pushed another on a street in Wellington in December 2016. He knew neither.

Police charged him with indecent assault, common assault and a breach of his extended supervision order.

Because he had been convicted of indecent assault twice before, he was subject to the now-repealed “three strikes” law, meaning the sentencing judge jailed him for the maximum of seven years for that offence.

When he was sentenced in May 2018, the judge noted the indecent assault was at the “bottom end” and would not have usually attracted a jail term at all. The Court of Appeal, however, upheld the sentence.

But the Appeal Court judges also said seven years was “manifestly unjust”, particularly...

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