Paraha v Police - [2017] NZHC 2001

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

CRI-2017-404-000216 [2017] NZHC 2001

BETWEEN
MANUEL PARAHA

Appellant

AND

NEW ZEALAND POLICE Respondent

Hearing: 21 August 2017

Appearances:

S A Mandeno for Appellant
Z R Hamill for Respondent

Judgment:

21 August 2017

ORAL JUDGMENT OF PALMER J

Solicitors:
Public Defence Service, Auckland
Crown Solicitor, Auckland

PARAHA v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2017] NZHC 2001 [21 August 2017]

Facts

The offending here

[1] On Thursday 16 October 2014, Mr Paraha, who was then 17, was washing car windows at the intersection of Great South Rd and Te Irirangi Drive in Manukau. He was walking backwards through the two northbound lanes of traffic. Mr Raymond Beattie was unable to stop his car before its left-hand wing mirror struck Mr Paraha. Mr Paraha fell to the ground and then walked to a traffic island. Mr Beattie stopped to check he was not hurt. Mr Paraha got angry and kicked in the car’s rear tail light, cracking it.

[2] On 11 June 2015, Mr Paraha pleaded guilty and was convicted in the District

Court of wilful damage to a rear tail light of a car and ordered to pay reparations of

$434.78.

[3] Mr Paraha had no previous convictions. He was represented by a different duty lawyer each time he appeared.

Subsequent alleged offending

[4] The following year, after events in February 2016, Mr Paraha faced two charges of common assault on family members.

[5] After spending some time with him, Mr Paraha’s counsel observed he may have an intellectual disability. The procedure under the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2011 was triggered.

Health assessments

[6] Reports by two health assessors under s 38 concluded Mr Paraha has an intellectual disability which manifested early in his school years.

[7] Dr Huddleston, on 22 July 2016, assessed Mr Paraha’s school records which

suggested he was working at a level well below what would be expected at the age

of nine. He attended a special high school in Christchurch for persons with intellectual disabilities until the earthquakes.

[8] Dr Huddleston considered Mr Paraha lacked basic understanding of the nature, purpose and possible consequences of court proceedings, with poor ability to communicate with counsel or to participate in court processes. She estimated him as having “significant cognitive difficulty” with a fullscale IQ of 60, extremely low to borderline verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, and working memory and speed of processing information. She considered his cognitive abilities and adaptive behaviour were significantly below what was normally expected of children of a similar age when he was in his early teens.

[9] Dr Huddleston assessed Mr Paraha’s understanding of “guilty” and “not guilty” was “at best, rudimentary”, with guilty meaning “might be going to jail” and “not guilty” as “won’t be going to jail”. He could not articulate the concepts or apply them to himself. He did not know about his intended plea.

[10] Dr Huddleston assessed Mr Paraha as not being capable of adequately understanding information placed before him or…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Paraha v Police

Details

AGLC: Paraha v Police [2017] NZHC 2001
Case: [2017] NZHC 2001
Decision Date: 21 August 2017

CaseChat Overview and Summary

Manuel Paraha appealed against his conviction for wilful damage to a car, arguing that he was unfit to plead due to an intellectual disability. The court had to decide whether Paraha's intellectual disability rendered him unfit to plead at the time of his guilty plea and whether this resulted in a miscarriage of justice. The court also had to consider whether to grant leave to appeal out of time due to the delay in identifying Paraha's intellectual disability. The court accepted the expert reports indicating that Paraha has an intellectual disability that developed in childhood, affecting his cognitive capacity to understand and participate in court proceedings. The court concluded that it was reasonable to infer that Paraha was unfit to plead at the time of his guilty plea, which constituted a miscarriage of justice. The court granted leave to appeal out of time and allowed the appeal, setting aside the conviction and the associated reparations order. The decision hinged on the acceptance of the expert reports and the comparison with a similar case, R v Leapai, where the court also found a miscarriage of justice due to intellectual disability.

Orders