Texas Doctor (inset) was sitting in his car parked outside shops on Penrose Rd, Mt Wellington, when he was shot twice at close range by Sione Tupou (left) in July 2024. Photo / NZME composite
A long-running feud between two Auckland families has resulted in another person being sent to prison, as the family of a former prefect turned gang member grapples with grief.
An unusually large contingent of security officers and police filled the courtroom, the hallways and stood sentinel outside the High Court at Auckland today as Sione Tupou, 24, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder one year ago of Texas Jack Doctor, who was 22.
Although Tupou is in the Head Hunters and Doctor was a Rebels member, the killing was clearly the result of simmering animosity between two families, Judge Graham Lang said today as he ordered Tupou to serve at least 11 years before he can begin to apply for parole.
Justice Lang said he saw the feud as an aggravating factor. Although the shooting and the victim crossed paths by happenstance that evening, Tupou had armed himself with an illegal firearm in preparation for such an encounter, he said.
The shooting occurred shortly after Tupou and an associate walked out of a Mt Wellington liquor store around 10.35pm on Saturday, July 13, last year, each carrying a 24-bottle box of Speights beer.
As they were loading the alcohol into their car, a VW Golf, Texas Doctor, known to family as “TJ”, also arrived at the liquor store in his silver Mazda hatchback.
While walking towards the liquor store moments later, Doctor recognised someone in the Volkswagen and nodded his head. But he didn’t see the looming danger until it was too late.
Doctor returned to his car after noticing Tupou get out of the back seat of the other vehicle. Tupou, now brandishing a gun, was close behind.
The defendant opened fire within three metres of the other man’s car, resulting in two wounds to Doctor’s torso.
Tupou and his friend fled the scene immediately afterwards.
Police would later find a gun in the boot of Doctor’s vehicle, but it would have been out of reach.
“By returning to his vehicle immediately, Mr Doctor made it clear he did not want any confrontation to take place,” Justice Lang said, describing the shooting as “completely unprovoked”.
The shooting was recorded on CCTV, which meant Tupou had little chance of acquittal had he proceeded to trial later this year, the judge noted. Tupou turned himself in four days after the shooting and pleaded guilty in April.
At his arraignment hearing, another High Court judge had to take the rare step of closing the courtroom to the public after tensions and outbursts between the two warring sides led him to believe those in the back of the court were “spoiling for a fight”.
Justice Lang warned the overflow crowd today that the court would be closed again if necessary.
“No one wants to do that because it’s essential that everybody hears the outcome and the reasons for it,” he said.
But safety is also essential, he said.
He didn’t have to carry out the threat. Aside from some loud supporters of the defendant who yelled out encouragement as Tupou was led away to begin serving his sentence, there were no outbursts this time.
In the lead-up to last year’s shooting, there had been five “significant violent incidents” between the Tupou and Doctor families across a 12-month period.
“Several of these involved firearms being discharged at addresses of the Tupou family,” according to a police summary of the case.
“These incidents appear to be the result of ongoing retaliations between the families, with the Tupou family and the Doctor family being recorded as offenders and victims at various stages.”
No one is exactly sure how the feud started. But from several different court cases, the Herald has pieced together a timeline of how the quarrel spiralled out of control.
The first recorded incident was on the evening of 19 July 2022, when Texas Junior Doctor – the father of Texas Jack Doctor – and another son, Wiremu, turned up unannounced at Sione Tupou’s house in the suburb of Glen Innes.
Tupou lived at the Taniwha St property with his mother.
Around 11.45pm, Tupou’s three sisters dropped their mother off at home after an evening out.
As she waved goodbye to her daughters through the window, Texas Junior Doctor and Wiremu Doctor, as well as a cousin, arrived brandishing shotguns.
The Doctor family patriarch fired at the house. Shotgun pellets shattered the window of the laundry where Tupou’s mother was standing, with the shards of glass falling into her hair.
He also fired, twice, at the three sisters as they reversed their car onto Taniwha St which punctured the two rear tyres.
“That’s what happens when you f*** with family,” one of the men shouted.
Retaliation was swift.
The Doctor family lived in the nearby suburb of Panmure, just 3km from the Tupou residence.
Three days later, someone shot Texas Junior Doctor outside his home. No one was ever arrested, but he planned to take matters into his own hands.
It was clear who he blamed.
In a text message to an associate, Texas Junior Doctor gave an explanation as to why he opened fire on the Tupou home in the first place.
“These f***ing idiots are after my oldest son [Texas Jack Doctor]. They beat him up in January, three car loads [of men] and put him in hospital,” Texas Junior Doctor wrote.
“I don’t know what they have against my boys but I’m glad it was me that got shot [and] not them.”
The elder Doctor asked his associate for more ammunition for his firearms.
“I have to protect my boys now,” he said.
A few weeks later, on August 12, 2022, Texas Junior Doctor and one other person returned to Tupou’s house in Glen Innes.
“Texas Doctor and the other person got out the vehicle and walked up the driveway of the address to the front door,” court documents state. “They were both holding a shotgun or other firearm.
“They fired 12 shots into the front door of the address, which caused extensive damage to a number of rooms inside the house.”
But no one was home – Sione Tupou and his family had already moved out.
The next day, police searched Texas Doctor’s vehicle and found a Norinco semi-automatic rifle and ammunition.
He and son Wiremu – both also members of the Rebels motorcycle gang – were sentenced to prison together in April last year after admitting to the shootings.
But the feud didn’t end there. The younger Texas Doctor would be fatally shot three months later, during the chance encounter at the liquor store.
In a series of emotional victim impact statements today, TJ Doctor’s aunties and other family members recalled his bear hugs and his laughter.
The family is shattered by the loss and will never truly heal, they each said as they took turns addressing the judge.
“As a family, it has broken us,” one auntie said.
He was the oldest grandson and great-grandson on both sides of the whanāu and a role model to younger cousins, they recalled.
Extended family are afraid to come to Auckland now due to fear of further retribution, which has made the healing process even more difficult, others said.
One aunt described the victim as the glue that held the family together.
“He may have been a big boy, but he also gave big hugs along with his big smile,” she said. “His huge hugs are missed. His voice is missed.
“We just want justice for TJ. He didn’t deserve to be taken in such a cruel way.”
The last speaker was the victim’s great-aunt, who recalled him being a student prefect at 17 years old and the heartbreak of watching him later “patch up”. She said she was sorry for Tupou as well, “put in a situation of retaliation when your whānau was attacked”.
With both sides proposing broadly similar sentence outcomes, Crown prosecutor Brett Tantrum and defence lawyer Annabel Ives didn’t have too much to add today to their written submissions.
But Ives wanted to make sure those assembled in the courtroom knew her client “has matured while in custody [awaiting trial] over the past year” and was truly remorseful for how the situation had spun so badly out of control.
It was important that those in the gallery knew that, she said.
“He has expressed a desire, in the fullness of time, to be able to apologise somehow,” she said. “It’s a sentiment he expressed to me on a number of occasions.”
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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