Mitchell Turner (left), Manase Holani and Jade Stacey appear in Auckland District Court for sentencing for the February 2023 kidnapping of a man who was dragged out of Glenfield Library after his fingertip was cut off. Photo / Craig Kapitan
Mitchell Turner (left), Manase Holani and Jade Stacey appear in Auckland District Court for sentencing for the February 2023 kidnapping of a man who was dragged out of Glenfield Library after his fingertip was cut off. Photo / Craig Kapitan
A dispute among drug addicts over a car led to a bloody confrontation in a library and a kidnap victim being dragged from the building after his fingertip was severed.
He was then held captive for about five hours inside two West Auckland homes, wherehe was stripped to his underwear and beaten.
Two men responsible for the attacks were sentenced to prison last week, while the woman who lured the victim to the confrontation was ordered to serve a sentence of home detention.
“My life flashed before my eyes during the incident,” the victim recalled in a written statement referred to by Auckland District Court Judge Pippa Sinclair as she spent hours sentencing the trio in back-to-back hearings.
Authorities said the victim had agreed to meet defendant Jade Stacey, whom he knew from a Mt Eden drug rehab facility, around 9am on a Thursday in February 2023. She had told him she was on her own, but the victim sensed something was wrong and began to run when he noticed co-defendants Mitchell Turner and Manase Katoa Holani following him closely.
“The defendants pursued [him] around the Glenfield area,” states the agreed summary of facts for Holani, who was the first to plead guilty earlier this year to kidnapping, on the same day the trio’s trial was set to begin.
Mitchell Turner appears in Auckland District Court in June 2025 for sentencing after pleading guilty to kidnapping. Photo / Craig Kapitan
The other two pleaded guilty that same week but requested a disputed facts hearing rather than agreeing to the same facts as Holani.
“[The victim] sought refuge within a toilet cubicle of the Glenfield library, where, in fear of his life, he locked the door and called 111,” Holani’s summary continues.
“The defendants entered the library and located (the victim) hiding within the locked toilet cubicle.”
Turner used a knife to force open the toilet cubicle lock. What happened next, however, is disputed.
A knife in the library
Turner’s lawyer, Jennifer Holden, suggested that is when the victim’s fingertip might have been accidentally severed.
Holani, meanwhile, initially suggested to the court that Turner intentionally cut the finger at a later stage in the library after the victim tried unsuccessfully to escape.
The trio was initially also charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, but prosecutors withdrew the charge.
Manase Holani is sentenced in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to kidnapping a man from Glenfield Library. Photo / Craig Kapitan
While recounting the facts of the case for each defendant, Judge Sinclair settled on an account of events in which she said both men forced their way into the toilet stall and “a violent struggle ensued”.
The victim was kicked in the chest, causing him to fall backwards into the toilet, and his right index finger was badly injured, she said.
“You’re coming with us,” both men are believed to have said, with Turner alleged to have added: “Stop f***ing around, c***! Hurry up, we got to go!”.
The male defendants then “manhandled” the victim from the toilet towards the exit, stopping him when he tried to break free and run back to the library, court documents state.
At that point, Stacey was at the wheel of a car outside the library, the judge noted. She drove off at speed as her co-defendants got in the car, forcing the victim to join them.
Lingering pain
Both men resumed the beating at the first address where he was held, taking his clothing and other belongings. The victim was later given other clothing and moved to a second address, where he was held for one or two hours.
“While at the address, [the victim] could hear Mr Turner talking about taking him south, however, he was unable to get anyone to drive them there,” court documents state.
Police released this photo of Mitchell Turner while trying to locate him after the Glenfield Library kidnapping.
The victim was eventually driven to a Glen Eden intersection and released.
He suffered extensive bruising, while the injury to his finger required two surgeries for skin, muscle and nerve damage and three months of physiotherapy, the judge noted.
The victim, now incarcerated for an unrelated case, was unable to attend the sentencing in person. But in his written statement, he said he suffered significant and lingering psychological harm. He also reported continuing nerve pain.
‘The situation escalated’
Judge Sinclair ordered sentences of three years’ imprisonment for Turner and two years and two months’ imprisonment for Holani. Both men had difficult childhoods marred by violence and gang affiliations and were in the grips of methamphetamine addiction when the incident occurred, she noted.
Turner was assessed as posing a high risk of re-offending and violence to others, while Holani’s risk was assessed as medium to high.
Holden, representing Turner, suggested that the kidnapping had not been pre-planned and the victim’s hand injury was not foreseeable.
Glenfield Library. Photo / Auckland Council
“It was to retrieve a vehicle that had been given to [the victim] beforehand,” Holden said of the confrontation, adding: “The situation escalated”.
Stacey set up the meeting after several days of the victim not responding to messages, the judge noted.
“Clearly, you were intent on getting that car,” she said as she sentenced Turner.
One difference between the two co-defendants was Turner spent nearly two years in custody while awaiting trial after his electronically monitored bail was cancelled for “foiling” his ankle monitor - a process that hides a defendant’s location.
Holani, meanwhile, spent nearly 20 months on bail with the Grace Foundation rehabilitation centre, where the judge acknowledged he made “significant strides”. He asked for a sentence of home detention, with the caveat that he wouldn’t mind staying at the centre.
‘A key player’
Stacey, meanwhile, was described by Holani as the mastermind of the confrontation while he said he and Turner were simply “the muscle”. The judge, however, said there was “no particular evidence” that Stacey was in charge.
Defence lawyer Hugh Leabourn asked that Stacey receive a sentence of community detention, which would allow her to continue the “radical turnaround” in her life.
“Ms Stacey has done a significant amount of work,” he said, explaining that she has spent her nearly 800 days on bail as productively as possible - moving away from her bad influences in Auckland, gaining a full-time job, volunteering as a youth worker and studying to make a career out of it.
Co-defendants Mitchell Turner (left), Manase Holani and Jade Stacey appear in Auckland District Court for sentencing after pleading guilty to the February 2023 kidnapping of a man who was dragged out of Glenfield Library after his fingertip was cut off. Photo / Craig Kapitan
“Quite frankly, having met her all that time ago ... the change in her is significant, both physically and mentally and emotionally.”
The judge agreed Stacey appears to have reached a “turning point” and commended her for her efforts at self-improvement. But the more rigorous conditions of home detention were needed, she said, to address the seriousness of the crime.
“You played a principal role,” the judge said. “... You were more than a mere lookout or a driver. You were a key player in this kidnapping.”
She ordered the home detention to last seven months.
“I must ensure you receive the message that you cannot engage in this type of behaviour,” Sinclair repeated to each of the three defendants.
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.
