A New Zealand court on Thursday discharged the husband of an Australian diplomat without convicting him, months after the man pleaded guilty to assault for drunkenly spitting on a teenager during a street altercation on the night of a rugby match in Wellington.
The man was granted permanent name suppression. Judge Paul Mabey, presiding at the Wellington District Court, said he didn’t accept the man’s arguments that the potential harms to him justified the discharge, but the magistrate agreed that his wife’s diplomatic career could be curbed by an assault conviction and the publication of his name.
