A man who fired a sawn-off, double-barrelled shotgun at a violent stranger – leaving the victim with a serious gut wound – has been sentenced to prison after a judge rejected the notion the term should be halved because of provocation.
Edward Sasulu, 24, was deported to New Zealand as a teenager in 2020, weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic prompted the first nationwide lockdown. He had no memory of New Zealand, having moved to Australia at age 3.
Lonely, depressed and with no viable support system in place, he sought refuge in methamphetamine and bad-influence fellow 501 deportees, defence lawyer Petrina Stokes said on Friday as her client appeared for sentencing before Judge Pippa Sinclair in Auckland District Court.
Crown prosecutor Campbell Hodgson did not dispute the veracity of Sasulu’s hard luck story, but he urged the judge to temper any discount because the defendant keeps committing crimes that appear to be escalating in seriousness.
“At some point, denunciation and deterrence and protection of the public need to take primacy,” he said.
The judge appeared to agree, ordering an end sentence of five years and six months’ imprisonment for the shooting charge.
He was handed concurrent one-year sentences for three other charges, including a prison attack and domestic violence.
The shooting occurred in West Auckland just after 8pm on July 26 last year.
Court documents state Sasulu and co-defendant Michael Brooklyn jnr Siologa were leaving an apartment building on Waikumete Rd, Glen Eden, when they were attacked by a group of people milling about outside.
“A male approached Mr Siologa and struck him,” according to the summary of facts that Sasulu agreed to.
“Mr Sasulu ran away while another male chased after him.
“Multiple males approached Mr Siologa and started assaulting him. Punches were exchanged. Mr Siologoa retreated towards parked cars as approximately six males continued to assault him.”
The group had finished the beating and were about to get in a waiting vehicle when Sasulu returned to the scene wielding the shotgun he had retrieved from inside the apartment complex.
“As [the victim] was getting into the passenger’s seat of the vehicle, Mr Sasulu deliberately pointed and fired one 12-gauge shot at him,” court documents state. “Pellets from the 12-gauge shot struck [the victim] in the abdomen and he fell to the ground in the middle of the road.”
Sasulu fired one more time in the direction of the fleeing vehicle that had been picking up the attackers.
Prosecutors asked Judge Sinclair to suppress the shooting victim’s name, suggesting it could endanger him and his family if his name were published. The judge granted the request.
As a result of the shooting, Sasulu faced up to 14 years’ imprisonment for a charge of committing a dangerous act with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Co-defendant Siologa, meanwhile, was charged with being an accessory after the fact after giving his mate a change of clothes and helping him leave the scene. He denied the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but was found guilty at trial.
At a hearing this month, Judge Nevin Dawson, who oversaw Siologa’s trial, added more context to the confrontation.
Judge Dawson described a 12-person “brawl” in which Siologa was initially the victim.
“What happened meant you should have called police,” the judge told Siologa, who is also a 501 deportee.
“It was a serious crime committed by your associate [to fire the weapon], but prior to that happening [you had been] chased and assaulted by approximately eight masked men who appeared to have gang connections.”
Judge Dawson described the shooting victim’s conduct as a “significant mitigating factor” for Siologa’s accessory charge.
“Your actions afterwards were misguided,” the judge said, but acknowledged he might have been dazed after the attack.
“The complainant’s conduct was deplorable,” Judge Dawson said, ordering a sentence of six months’ imprisonment for the co-defendant.
Sasulu’s lawyer pointed to Judge Dawson’s assessment of the situation at Friday’s sentencing hearing before Judge Sinclair.
Stokes asked that her client’s sentence starting point be reduced by up to 50% to acknowledge he acted either out of provocation or excessive self-defence.
But Judge Sinclair rejected the idea, pointing out the assault on Sasulu’s friend had finished and the attackers were leaving when he chose to open fire.
There was a degree of premeditation in his decision to return with a shotgun, she said, adding his decision to open fire in a public street “posed a serious risk to the public”.
Although the victim survived the shooting, he was hospitalised as multiple shotgun pellets were removed from his back and near his spinal muscles.
The judge ordered a starting point of six years and nine months, then added a nine-month uplift for an unrelated incident at Waikato’s Spring Hill prison last year in which he punched another inmate with an uppercut. The other prisoner was left unconscious for several minutes.
A further three months were added for having punched a woman in the face during an argument. The strike was hard enough that she fell to the ground.
The judge allowed a 20% discount for his guilty pleas and a 15% reduction for his troubled upbringing, which she acknowledged “had a profound and adverse effect on you”.
His childhood included exposure to family violence and his father leaving the family when the defendant was 9 years old. He was expelled from school at age 12, explaining that he had been bullied and subject to racism, and developed substance and gambling addictions thereafter.
Sasulu’s lawyer had sought a discount of 20-30% for his background, but the judge said it needed to be less in part because he had already relied on his life story to receive reduced sentences in the past.
The judge also noted Sasulu has been assessed by probation as having a medium to high risk of reoffending.
After calculating the reductions, she increased the sentence one final time to account for his criminal history.
He had convictions for robbery and violence in Australia, she noted. And in the five years since his arrival in New Zealand, he had been convicted of seven prior violent crimes, including aggravated robbery and assault.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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