Maori activist avoids jail on poaching charges

Te Kaha

Maori activist Te Kaha has escaped a prison term over his role in a black market paua ring.

Te Kaha was sentenced to 320 hours of community work by Judge Charles Blackie in Manukau District Court today.

His nephew Trent John Karaitiana was sentenced to 350 hours of community work.

Both men admitted charges of conspiring to defraud the New Zealand public after more than 100 kilograms of paua was sold to an undercover fisheries officer in 2003.

Prosecutor Amy Jordan said after the sentencing Karaitiana received a slightly longer sentence after he also admitted charges of breach of community work.

She said the judge told Te Kaha he would normally go to prison for a commercial paua fraud ring but he had been sentenced to community work because co-offenders had been sentenced to community work.

"He felt parity applied and he would impose a community-based sentence," she said.

Te Kaha, an artist, won infamy for stealing a Colin McCahon painting from the Aniwaniwa conservation centre at Lake Waikaremoana in 1997.

Its return was negotiated by arts patron Jenny Gibbs.

- NZPA