NEW ZEALAND – New Zealand police have criticised the non-custodial sentence handed down to the teenage son of a multimillionaire who beat a police officer unconscious during a drunken rage.

Nikolas Delegat, 19, the son of wine magnate Jakov Delegat, attacked Constable Alana Kane in Dunedin in March last year.

Delegat, a student at the University of Otago, continued punching the officer even after she lost consciousness, and also attacked a campus security guard and damaged property at a student bar.

The assault was so severe Kane took two months off work and remains on light duties.

Delegat was sentenced on Monday at Dunedin district court to 300 hours’ community service and ordered to pay costs of NZ$5,000 to Kane. He was also refused a request for anonymity and a discharge without conviction.

New Zealand Police Association (NZPA) said the sentencing was “manifestly unjust”, and if Delegat had been brown and poor, he would have received a prison sentence of between six months and a year.

“This was a very serious offence, it was a sustained and brutal attack on a representative of the state even after she had passed out from her injuries,” said Greg O’Connor, president of the NZPA.

“If this man had been a Polynesian youth unable to afford top-notch legal representation, he would be facing jail time now.”

O’Connor reported a strong sense of “disquiet” among Dunedin police officers at the sentence, and said people had been approaching the association to express their outrage.

People voiced their frustration on social media, sharing stories of similar cases to Delegat, in which Maori or Polynesian young men faced jail time for first-offence assaults.

“I think this has really struck a cord with New Zealanders because Kiwis are inherently fair people and this light sentence smacks of being unfair,” said O’Connor.

“This cannot be written off as youthful exuberance, the level of brutality was excessive and disturbing.”

In 2006, Maori academic Hautahi Kingi punched a man several times over a dispute involving his girlfriend, giving the man a black eye and a cut lip.

Although it was his first offence and his victim did not want to press charges, Kingi was sentenced to five months in jail for the assault. The sentence was overturned only after a leading lawyer working for free appealed against the sentence.

In a statement from his lawyer, Mark Ryan, Delegat said he was remorseful for his crime.

Ryan said: “Nikolas was in the first month of his university study away from home in Dunedin. He made a bad decision in the heat of the moment which caused considerable harm to those affected, which he regrets.

“He also apologises to his family and those around him for the trouble he has caused them.”

In an opinion piece for Newshub, intern journalist Chris Holden wrote that Delegat should have received a prison sentence.

“The New Zealand justice system believes spending a few hours doing something like planting trees is adequate punishment for punching a female police officer so badly she is still recovering, 18 months later,” he wrote.

“The moral of Delegat’s sentence is if you do the crime you don’t do the time.”

“And what’s more, under the Clean Slate Act 2004 Delegat will be eligible to have his conviction wiped after seven years provided he pays his fine, avoids any further convictions in seven years and completes his community service.

“However, the court of public opinion had other ideas and handed him a life sentence, which means he will never be able to hide from his actions.

“Now, when he goes to apply for a job, employers will search his name in Google and discover his horrendous actions, long after the Clean Slate Act has formally wiped his convictions.

“The wealthy Delegat family hired good lawyers in the hope of securing permanent name suppression and a discharge without conviction, but it didn’t help.

“Instead, the subsequent media attention will step in where the justice system did not, and hold Delegat accountable for the rest of his life.”

- PNC sources