Guilty of assaulting wife

The National Main Stories

By ELIAS LARI
A VILLAGE court magistrate in Western Highlands was found guilty of assaulting his wife by the Mt Hagen District Court on Wednesday and fined K400 instead of K4,000 because he was a first-time offender and a leader.
Luke Olding was facing a maximum fine or two years’ jail but the court showed leniency and warned him not to repeat the mistake or he would be re-arrested and jailed.
Olding was found guilty of committing the offence on July 7 at Tiki in the Mul-Baiyer electorate.
He attacked Angela Korua, an elementary teacher, while she was in class.
District Court Magistrate Sathieshar Lane told Olding the maximum penalty for such an offence was a K4,000 fine or two years in jail. She said Olding was an expert in dealing with such issues back at the village level and he should have applied the same to his own problems but took the law into his own hands.
Police prosecutor Sam Nili insisted that Olding faced the maximum penalty because his actions were unlawful.
He said the offence was serious and Olding needed to face the maximum sentence to teach him a lesson.
But Lane said because Olding was a first-time offender and a community leader, the sentence was reduced
“If you would have avoided the situation when she broke the windscreen of your vehicle that morning, then you would not have come to this court or faced the police of the charges,” she said.

18 comments

  • No body is above the law.
    He is the village court magistrate, he should have being applying those measures that he supposed.
    He must pay the price of it whether to be jailed two years or pay K4,000.

  • Sathieshar Lane, decision you made to show leniency is that you promote such to happen again and you will continue to show lenient in handling all the court issues.
    Stop now and do the right thing.

  • Insane Law and order Officer. Cant act upon your very profession why
    telling people the Law. Disgusting.

  • In other words, you are encouraging those men out there to do anything they thought is right for the poor women and children. Today we all are crying and aired our voices in the social media about men assaulting their wives and killing them. Yet the court system is lenient to offenders. Kot yu laik bai moa meri na pikinini dai o?????

  • What a stupid decision. He should have paid the maximum penalty, whether first time offender or not. The reasons are simple. 1. He is a village court magistrate. He can’t judge others over the same issues, if he himself does not follow the laws and assaults his wife. 2. The message many will get is that it’s ok to beat up or assault your wife without any fear of getting the maximum penalty. Those penalties are like lollies for offenders, because it does not deter them from bashing their wives. 3. If the law and judiciary is serious about fighting and eradicating such practices then it should impose tough penalties. Otherwise forget about charging them.

    • In every organisation there is a code of Ethics that every employee follows.If an employee breaches this set of code of Ethics he or she is defenately terminated and deregistered from discharging his or her duties.It is distgusting to know that his penalty is so linen

  • Again we have the Justice system failing another Mother in PNG
    How long does this have to go on for before we get it into out think heads that wife beating is wrong
    If she died, would you as the District court say because he is a first time offender he sould be given leniency?
    This is just rubbish

  • Did you people understand the news, that man did that because the woman broke his car windscreen that cost thousand in which that woman didn’t struggle like that man to buy it. Justice have to be in both side to balance life.

    • Mr Tony Bill-I think you didnt understand the diffeerence between Human Beings and things!!!
      Car is just a thing with no life-Don’t measure life with lifeless things of this world.
      In other words you are promoting not only GBV but Cargo Cult too!!!

    • Correct Tonny. There is a root cause for this incident. You don’t solve the problem if you don’t remove/resolve the root cause. The root cause in this case is the broken windscreen.

  • The magistrate who handled this case should be charged for promoting Gender Based Violence (GBV), The whole country is trying to get over the anguish of the brutal murder of Jerelyn Kennedy and looking for ways to combat such horrible crimes. The magistrate is not living in the real world. What a Shame.

    • Mr Dai A-I think you and your frien Tony B didnt understand the difference between Human Beings and things!!!

  • Waste of time in court.
    She will spend the money on family expenses.
    They are together at home and share one bed at night.

  • Hahahhaha….don’t be surprise the next time around would be severe than this, otherwise death…why? Because the court has leniency for being the first time offender and as a law enforcer in the village level. He think he’s above the law and will do whatever he wants. Coward….only in PNG.

  • The magistrate should be relieved of his duties immediately. A person with standing in the community should behave likewise and uphold the law of the land which he himself prophesies. Otherwise its a complete mockery.

  • You can tick the excellent box all the time for women. Must understand that men assault women for reasons!

    Therefore you cant tick the correct box for women all the time.
    Look at it this way. The cause is the woman. She broke the car screen so the husband assaults her.

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