WARNING: This article discusses domestic violence and may be upsetting to some readers.

A man with a history of abuse became so enraged with his partner after she stopped to chat with a friend that he took her to a cemetery where he beat her badly before leaving her alone in the dark.

The woman, who was only just recovering from a previous beating when William Toko assaulted her, was injured and feared for her life.

“I was scared and I really thought I was going to die,” she said in a statement that was read out in the Whangārei District Court today during Toko’s sentencing.

The Dargaville man pleaded guilty to two charges of assault with intent to injure and one charge of injuring with intent to injure following two separate assaults, saying he wanted to spare his now ex-partner from having to go to trial.

The court heard that while drinking at a pub in Dargaville in late October 2020, the couple ran out of money. His partner went down the road to an ATM but on her way back she ran into a friend and had a 15-minute chat.

When she returned to the pub, Toko was clearly upset at having had to wait for her and they left.

The woman thought they were driving home but Toko drove to the local cemetery where he raged about having to wait for her and she sustained a brutal beating before being left in the dark with serious injuries.

She suffered another assault from Toko while he was absconding on bail in July of 2021.

In sentencing before Judge Gene Tomlinson, Toko’s history of abuse of women was argued by Crown lawyer Sam McDonald who said the latest offending had sinister undertones.

“The Crown wishes to emphasise the continued and repeated patterns of an individual who thinks that it’s okay to lay his hands on vulnerable women in the community.

“Breaches of various protection orders and disregards for the safety of women who should be allowed to feel safe.

“His entire adult life he has behaved in a way that has caused sustained harm to vulnerable women. I want to make that point very clear,” McDonald said.

McDonald read out the victim’s formal witness statement from 2020 which described the injuries she received including broken ribs, bumps to her head and bruising to most of her body. She said she lived on edge, always thinking she was doing or saying the wrong thing.

The Crown accepted Toko had a tragic upbringing being a victim of state care and defence lawyer Martin Hislop said his client had been receiving counselling from ACC while in prison.

“He’s 51, he’s been in custody most of his life and it is like a cancer that has been growing inside him and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

“He’s determined now, he wants to get on with his life … it’s going to be up to him to take this further, especially when he gets out.”

Judge Tomlinson said Toko’s circumstances were disturbing and resulted in a deep distrust of the state but following regular counselling he had identified where his anger came from.

“It’s the harm that has been inflicted on you, and you are now inflicting that harm on others,” Tomlinson said to a visibly tearful Toko.

“Men and women who have suffered, as you have, by being in state care, who have had harm brought upon them from a very young age, are those that remain in the care of what we do.

“You’ve worked it out. ‘I don’t have to be this man anymore, I don’t have to harm the people I care about. I don’t have to be that type of person’.”

Tomlinson encouraged him to remain on the path of rehabilitation and sentenced him to three years imprisonment. He will be required to go before the Parole Board for release.

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/Ngātiwai/Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked freelance in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.