Jail term for attack on police officer

A man who used the police commissioner’s name to assault a police officer in Port Moresby last year has been sentenced to a three-year jail term.
However, Justice Panuel Mogish suspended the sentence and placed Junior Simbanganei on a good behaviour bond for three years.
Simbanganei, 20, from Madang and West New Britain, pleaded guilty to the charge of wounding Kudd Saulepai at Gerehu Stage One on Feb 5 last year.
Justice Mogish described the offender’s case as very serious, when the offence was committed in the company of armed accomplices.
“Thugs who behave in that way by infringing the rights of other road users must be punished,” the Judge said when sentencing Simbaganei.
The court heard that the offender was armed with an axe which he used to attack the victim in the company of others. The victim sustained lacerations on the left cheek and right shoulder, graze at the back of the neck and bruises at the right elbow and was swollen and bruised on the right forearm.
The victim was exercising his constitutional right to walk with his two children that morning when he was attacked.
Justice Mogish said to justify the offender’s stupidity, he used the commissioner’s name as a relative to commit the offence.
“You have no right to use the commissioner’s name and the police officer rightly told you to behave if you claim to be his nephew and not to drag his name with your stupidity,” he told the offender.
“I do think the commissioner will be happy to know that one of his relatives chooses to call his name when committing an indictable offence.”