CITY HOMICIDE - Brutal violence `on unimaginable scale'

Seventeen-year-old Mairina Dunn told friends she was scared in her new relationship with her Black Power boyfriend, yet she believed he would never harm her.
But early on Sunday, she died in an Otangarei house after a brutal hour-and-a-half beating that a veteran police officer described as violence on an unimaginable scale.
A post mortem in Auckland yesterday found that she died as the result of a "sustained and brutal beating that has continued over a period of time before her death".
Whangarei police Detective Senior Sergeant Marty Ruth said she was pummelled with a blunt instrument for more than an hour and a half.
Five more officers were to join the investigation today, boosting the police team to 50.
They want to find Black Power member Nathan Fenton, 31, in connection with Mairina's killing. The two had been in a domestic relationship for less than a month.
Police are warning the public not to approach Fenton as he reportedly has a firearm and is dangerous.
It is understood that Mr Fenton may have headed to Auckland where he has extended family.
Yesterday armed police wearing body armour remained on guard at the Holmes Ave house where Mairina died.
Mr Ruth said there were witnesses to the assault on Mairina.
Asked about the level of violence, Mr Ruth said it was on an unimaginable scale.
There had been a number of unconfirmed sightings of Mr Fenton in Auckland and Whangarei and he reminded those harbouring Nathan Fenton, the person of central interest in the inquiry, that there could be "consequences" to their actions.
Four of Mairina's friends - T, Tash, Rere and Leeza - described her as a "staunch", fun, and "awesome chick" who liked drinking, smoking, having a laugh and a good time.
She and Mr Fenton had met at a party a few weeks ago. "She did like her tough boys - hard boys," the friends said.
Although she reportedly told her friends she believed he'd never harm her, she was also scared of him. "She was too scared to leave him," they said.
They knew Mairina by her nickname Toe-toe, which she'd painted in big red letters on a wooden fence in Otangarei.
A spokesman for Mairina's family, Jacob Dunn, who is an uncle of Mairina's mother Queenie, said the family was in shock after Mairina's death.
"It's blown my family away," he said.
With many people in Otangarei talking about finding her killer before the police did, and dishing out some "justice", Mr Dunn said "the quicker they get him ... the better".
Anybody harbouring her killer should "give him up before he does it to someone else. He might do it to their kids, whoever's hiding him".
He said Mairina was a "strong-minded" girl who'd mixed with the wrong crowd. She was "coming right" after recently returning from an army camp in Christchurch, and was thinking about joining the army.
Her body was to return to Northland overnight. The family planned to take her to the family marae, Waimirirangi at Waihou in the west Hokianga.
She would be buried beside her grandmother Regina "Chicken" Dunn, he said.