Arohaina Henare murder: Twin sons ‘lost the plot’ and attacked mum’s killer in courtroom

Police arrive at the Napier courthouse to help restore order after the courtroom altercation on September 11. Photo / Ric Stevens

The twin teenage sons of a murdered woman “simply lost the plot” when they saw the killer in front of them, and scaled a courtroom security barrier to assault him in the dock.

Trizarn and Cylus Henera, both 18 at the time, had not expected to see Moses Taua standing before them when they joined about 30 other family members in the High Court at Napier in September.

The family had believed that Taua, who at that time had yet to plead to murdering 34-year-old Napier woman Arohaina Henare in November last year, would be appearing at the court via audio-visual link.

Instead, he was there in person, standing in the dock with his back to the public gallery, separated from the dead woman’s whānau by a 1.8m glass security wall with two locked doors.

Arohaina Henare's photo from her funeral service memorial.

Towards the end of the administrative hearing, a man used the handle of one of the doors as a foothold to scale the security barrier and attack Taua in the dock.

A Corrections Officer suffered a knee injury as he tried to stop him.

Three other men, including the twins, followed moments later, getting involved in the melee and Trizarn Henare was soon stomping on Taua in the dock.

On Friday, the brothers stood side by side in that same dock, this time for a Napier District Court hearing, after pleading guilty to a joint charge of assault with intent to injure.

“You simply lost the plot. That’s the best way I can put it,” Judge Geoff Rea said to them.

The judge said “the red mist descended” when the twins saw what was going on and felt they needed to get involved.

The fact that their mother was the murderer’s victim made it “forgivable to some degree”, but it was a bad decision and serious offending.

“People in court have to be safe,” Judge Rea said. “When actions are taken that show people are unsafe, courts have to come down hard on it so that it doesn’t become a common feature.”

The twins had a clean record before that day in September. Had they not, the judge said, he might have sent them to prison.

Instead, he sentenced each of them to 12 months of supervision with conditions to attend counselling and programmes, and 150 hours of community service to “give back to the community”.

Two other men who were allegedly involved in the courtroom assault are being dealt with separately by the court.

Moses Taua was last month sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 10 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering Arohaina Henare, a mother of six, who lived in a sleepout on the property where he was living.

After a day of drinking and using methamphetamine and cannabis, Taua confronted her in the sleepout in the early hours of November 18 because of a dispute in which he had asked her to move out.

The courts have been told Henare shoved Taua’s partner during a disagreement earlier.

“How dare you put your hands on my missus,” Taua said to Henare as he swung a knife into her chest.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.