Greg Williams jailed for running down son’s mother in ‘shocking’ daylight ‘rampage’
CONTENT WARNING: The court heard the man was ‘desperate’ to see his young son but running down his mother was ‘quite obviously the worst thing you could have done’ in that regard.
Police & Courts
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A man who ran down the teenage mother of his young son in a “shocking” daylight “rampage” in a Palmerston shopping centre carpark will spend two years and six months behind bars.
Gregory James Williams pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to two counts of intentionally causing injury and one count each of reckless endangerment and property damage after he sped towards the 19-year-old in January.
The court heard the then 37-year-old’s relationship with the woman had broken down the previous month before he started following her around Palmerston “pestering her to get in the car” with him and yelling “foul abuse”.
When the woman and her 20-year-old friend arrived at the Palmerston bus exchange, they asked a security guard to walk them to the nearby shopping centre but as they started to cross the road Williams accelerated “directly towards them”.
Williams’ vehicle then mounted a traffic island at about 56km/h as the two women tried to jump out of the way but his car struck them on the legs and crashed into a parked car with a third woman in the driver’s seat.
While the teenager lay on the ground clutching her injured ankle, Williams turned around and drove back towards her, narrowly avoiding striking her again as she ran away.
Chief Justice Michael Grant said Williams then drove to a nearby service station and called police, telling them his foot “slipped on the accelerator” and he “freaked out”.
“That was no doubt a lie designed to avoid criminal responsibility for your conduct — police no doubt saw through that lie and came and arrested you,” he said.
“It’s only by sheer good fortune that none of (the women) were killed or suffered more serious injury.”
In sentencing Williams to five years in prison, suspended after two years and six months, Chief Justice Grant said his prospects for rehabilitation were “reasonable”.
“You say that you’re desperate to see your son and play a part in his life but running down his mother is quite obviously the worst thing you could have done in terms of any future role in your son’s life,” he said.
“You will have a lot of work to do to come back from here.”
Chief Justice Grant said Williams’ moral culpability was “elevated by the fact that you used a motor vehicle for the purposes of your attack”.
“There’s something particularly perverse and frightening about taking an otherwise benign but potentially dangerous object that’s used in everyday life and then deploying it as a weapon,” he said.
“The community finds the use of motor vehicles as weapons to be particularly abhorrent given the high degree of vulnerability to such an attack.”