5 years for knife attack

A 29-YEAR-OLD man was jailed five years by the National Court in Waigani for using a bush knife to cause grievous hurt in a drunken brawl last year.
Justice Laura Wawun-Kuvi ordered Henry Tovana to be placed on probation for three years in his Kerea village in, Kairuku-Hiri, Central, after serving his sentence.
Tovana was also ordered to pay K3,000 compensation within a year after serving sentence to his victim, Morea Waina, and do community work for two hours each week with the local church for six months.
On June 13, last year, at about 3pm, Tovana and his drunkard friends started a fight with Waina over a can of coke.
Tovana was beaten up by Waina.
He then ran into his house, grabbed a bush knife and attacked Waina.
“It is yet another alcohol-fuelled fight over petty and insignificant things,” Justice Wawun-Kuvi said.
“It is almost as if the alcohol turned grown men into squabbling young children.
“However, unlike squabbling young children, these men feel compelled to display some sort of displaced form of heroism and avenge their hurt egos by using offensive weapons to maim and kill.
“Such violence is prevalent.
“Society cannot condone such idiotic behaviour from grown men.
“This is a village setting.
“Both sides were busy consuming alcohol along the village road.
“Our villages are no longer pictorial ideals of tranquillity.
“Young men, like Tovana and Waina, rather than taking care of their gardens and families, roam the village streets with speakers or boom boxes and create nuisance along the village roads.”
The court noted in the pre-sentence report that the community in Kerea (including Waina), through their leaders, recommended that there be a public reconciliation instead of a custodial sentence.