Hell's Angels gang member sentenced for drunken fights in town after family function

A senior member of the Hell's Angels will serve nine months' home detention for assaulting six people in a drunken rampage after a decade of sobriety. Chad Ian Mcrae-Tweeddale, 28, was sentenced by Judge Jim Large in the Palmerston North District Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to five charges of assault and charges of assault with intent to injure and threatening to injure.

Mcrae-Tweeddale was at a family function on February 24 when he decided to drink for the first time in 10 years. After the function he went to the Regent Arcade in Palmerston North and went to two bars, leaving six victims in his wake.

About 12.30am on February 25 he was in one of the bars with associates in a seated area.
The first victim came up to talk to one of his associates and during the conversation Mcrae-Tweeddale associate head butted the victim.  Mcrae-Tweeddale then punched the victim, which knocked him out, and he fell on to a table and slid on to the floor.

Mcrae-Tweeddale stood and watched the victim lying on the floor and continued drinking, before throwing the remaining contents of his drink on the victim, who was still unconscious. After this assault he went to another bar and asked the duty manager for a bar tab. When the request was declined, he got angry.

Mcrae-Tweeddale grabbed the duty manager by the front of his shirt, pulled him closer and said he would be coming to visit him at his house. Mcrae-Tweeddale slapped him across the face before someone else stepped in to try to calm him down. But this just made Mcrae-Tweeddale angrier and he punched the person intervening in the head seven times.

Mcrae-Tweeddale's girlfriend tried to lead him from the bar, but he continued to punch the person three more times, knocking him to the ground. The fourth person was assaulted as he stepped in to calm the situation. Mcrae-Tweeddale punched him in the face.

More punters came over to try to stop the assault, which was when the fifth person was punched in the face. A sixth person was punched in the face as Mcrae-Tweeddale was leaving the bar. The injuries suffered varied from a cut lip and concussion to cuts and bruises and tender faces.

Defence lawyer Esme Killeen said Mcrae-Tweeddale went out with his partner, "drank too much and had a complete shocker". She said when he sobered up and was told what he had done he immediately went to the bar owner and apologised.

Killeen said Mcrae-Tweeddale knows alcohol is a problem.
"He is so embarrassed, as he has been from day one. This was not gang violence, he was not out with his mates, he was with his partner."

Large accepted Mcrae-Tweeddale was genuinely remorseful and that he had done something about his actions when he sobered up.


New Zealand - BN.