A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Two men caught with nearly 100 undersized paua have been fined $1000 each and a vehicle they used has been confiscated.
Rapata Apirana Tangoiro Haerewa, 28, and Duane Putihana Steven Waititi, 43, were stopped by fisheries officers at a roadside checkpoint in Hicks Bay on April 2, 2021.
Haerewa, fromGisborne, and Waititi, from Cape Runaway, had been at Lottin Point where they had gathered 92 paua — 72 more than the daily catch limit of 10 per person and all of which were less than the regulation minimum size of 125mm long.
Both men subsequently pleaded guilty to charges of possessing excess and undersized paua.
Haerewa was fined $1000 at his sentencing in the Ruatoria District Court last July. A Holden Rodeo vehicle the pair used in the offending was forfeited to the Crown during that hearing.
Waititi was fined a similar amount when he appeared via AV-link from the Whakatane District Court for his sentencing in Gisborne District Court this week.
Judge Turitea Bolstad set a starting point for the fine at $1500, reducing it for mitigating circumstances to $1000, of which $750 was for the excess paua; $250 was for it being undersized.
In submissions, counsel Holly Tunstall drew the court's attention to Waititi's lack of any previous convictions of any type.
