Most strangulation convictions came from guilty pleas

Friday, 2 May 2025

Almost all convictions for non fatal strangulation/suffocation entered in city courts last year were the result of guilty pleas, data shows.

Of 809 cases of such offences brought before the courts in 14 main centres (including Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) in the year to June 2024, 352 (44%) led to convictions, of which 311 (88%) were from guilty pleas, according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice obtained by retired family violence detective Rob Veale MNZM under the Official Information Act and then provided to The Post.

The Post has previously revealed that fewer than half of reports of this type of crime made to police ended up in court, over a five-year period, and fewer than half those cases that were prosecuted led to convictions.

It’s widely suspected by those working in the family violence sector that many of the thousands of strangulation cases have outcomes of “not proven” because of agreements between prosecutors and defence lawyers to have the charge replaced with a lesser family violence charge, such as assault on a person in a family relationship, to which the offender pleads guilty.

Family violence prevention advocates say the figures relating to guilty pleas raise questions about how cases of impeding someone’s breathing are dealt with by police and prosecutors.

Chief victims advisor Ruth Money said it was positive that offenders were admitting accountability, and hopefully getting the rehabilitation that they needed, but she still had “a grave concern around this particular crime being able to be cleared away, given the severity we know it to be”.

“We know [strangulation] leads to homicide. We know that Aotearoa, New Zealand, has an epidemic of family violence. It doesn't seem right to me that we are able to do deals on this incredibly serious charge.”

In Women’s Refuge chief executive Dr Ang Jury’s view, the data indicated there was a “huge caution” by authorities when it came to choosing which strangulation cases they brought to court.

“If you’ve got over 80% pleading guilty, they must be pretty solid cases. It would seem to me that those guilty pleas would’ve been associated with physical evidence.”

However, what was not clear from the figures, she said, was how many of the guilty pleas to strangulation were actually themselves the result of charges being downgraded from even more serious ones, such as attempted homicide.

She wanted to see the law around strangulation “strengthened significantly”.

One way to do this could be to update the Solicitor-General’s prosecution guidelines, which advise prosecutors when to consider withdrawing charges if an accused person agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge, to recognise the “mortality red flag” that strangulation charges have, Jury said.

Veale, who has been a member of the inaugural National Family Violence Death Review Committee and led training sessions in family violence prevention around New Zealand since leaving the police, said given that studies had found Māori were more likely than other ethnic groups to plead guilty, the new data raised concerns about equity in the justice system.

“Unless you plead guilty to strangulation, the chances of you being convicted for strangulation are small because most of the [charges] that aren't convicted are downgraded to assault on a family member or something like that.”

Ministry of Justice general manager, criminal justice, Alida Mercuri said in a statement that the Ministry could not comment on the conviction rates related to strangulation because they involved judicial and prosecution decisions and the courts and judiciary were independent of the executive part of the government.

However, the statement added that the Ministry and other agencies were considering a review of the strangulation offence.

The rationale for the review, or what it will involve, has not been made public.