Wednesday 24 February 2021
Swearing for a good cause
Sallie shares fighting spirit
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Loophole sees machete attacker walk free
EXCLUSIVE Charles Anderson Whenever Mark Watts reaches up to touch the top of his head, he feels the impact of when a woman brought down a machete on his skull, leaving him in intensive care fighting for his life. It is an indentation that caused his brain to swell, leading him to be flown by rescue helicopter to Nelson Hospital. If the strike had buried any deeper, Mark would be dead. The Stoke resident never expected the woman to attack him two years ago. “It came out of nowhere.” But 10 months after the accident he also never expected the woman to walk free from the justice and the healthcare system
after she was deemed unfit to stand trial. It turned out, she herself was the victim of a traumatic brain injury that led her to act violently. But there was nowhere for her to go to. “When the person was released, my victim impact statement may as well have gone on the fire,” Mark says. “The law needs to change, it doesn’t matter who the perpetrator is, the victim should have rights too.” Mark recently presented evidence to the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill which seeks to change the formal finding of the court to provide victims with the acknowledgment that the offender was proven to have acted grievously, even if they lacked the intent to be guilty of the action.
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Mark Watts was left fighting for his life after a woman struck him in the skull with a machete. Photo: Charles Anderson.
Riverside precinct aims to be ‘beacon’ Charles Anderson and Erin Bradnock A new multimillion dollar riverside precinct in central Nelson aims to be a “beacon
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for sustainable design” in New Zealand with a lifespan looking hundreds of years into the future. Last week, Wakatū Incorporation and Nelson City Council revealed
plans to revitalise the riverside area between Trafalgar St and Paru Paru Rd. It would include a new library, a ‘climatorium’ as well as permanent playground, community squares and new
retail and office spaces. “We are really excited about this,” says Wakatū Incorporation’s group general manager property and commercial, Iain Sheves. “We think that putting the
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effort into building resilient and sustainable buildings is the future – not just for Nelson, but worldwide.”
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