Unitec Road Rage attacker locked up for three years
The ex-Unitec student convicted of killing an elderly man outside the grounds of Unitec has been sentenced to three years in jail.
At the Auckland High Court on September 29 Bio O’Brien, who was studying civil engineering at Unitec at the time of the attack, appeared before Justice Judith Potter for the manslaughter of 78-year-old Jashmatbai Patel of Te Atatu. The crown prosecutor read out the summary of facts, which stated Mr Patel and O’Brien were both heading in a southern direction along Carrington Road on April 8 this year. O’Brien was driving a BMW and Mr Patel a van. The two collided as O’Brien was entering Unitec, causing a dent in O’Brien’s BMW. O’Brien then stopped, got out of his car and went over to Mr Patel’s, where he then pulled the elderly man out of his van to show him the dent, and proceeded to push and pull him, and strike him around the face and chest. He pulled and pushed him with such force that buttons were ripped from Mr Patel’s shirt. O’Brien then pushed Mr Patel over, which caused him to hit his head on the kerb, which was the fatal blow. It opened a wound in the back of his head, and caused profuse bleeding from his ear. The court heard that O’Brien then moved his victim to a grass area and paced around, not knowing what to do. He waited outside Gate Four for police to arrive, while Mr Patel was taken to intensive care where he died the following day.
The incident happened in front of school children from Gladestone Primary, and was in heavy traffic.
The crown and defence asked Justice Potter what they believed were appropriate sentences for the crime – the crown wanted the sentence to act as a deferent so others would not act the way O’Brien did, while his lawyer David Niven said the sentence should reflect O’Brien’s remorse. Mr Niven told the court O’Brien felt remorse as soon as he realised what he had done, reflected in his statement to police where O'Brien said as soon as Mr Patel hit the ground, "I realised what I had done and tried to assist". Justice Potter decided on the three year sentence as it took into account O'Brien's guilty plea and the remorse he had shown by trying to meet with the family and writing them a letter. Mr Patel’s son George Patel read out his victim impact statement to the court, which was emotional and the man was viably upset, he says his dad was the “most loving and caring dad." Mr Patel drives past the spot outside Unitec where his father was killed every day. He says he still gets “sad and distressed” when he sees violence on TV because it makes him think of how his father died. In his statement he said he did not wish the way his father died on his worse enemy. Speaking to media outside the court, Mr Patel said he did not believe O’Brien was really remorseful, and that no sentence was good enough to pay for the death of his father.