Armourguard Security mobile patrol officer Ramandeep Singh, 25, was killed in the Royal Reserve carpark in Massey, Auckland, on December 18, 2023. Photo / Armourguard Security
An Auckland teenager responsible for a screwdriver stabbing attack that showed “unrelenting and extreme violence” – followed five months later by the fatal beating of a stranger – will keep his name permanently secret.
The 19-year-old was found unfit to stand trial in 2024 for the assault and the murder cases, the latter of which involved the unprovoked killing of security guard Ramandeep Singh, who was targeted as he tried to lock up the vehicle entrance to a West Auckland reserve two years ago.
A multi-day hearing was held this year in which another judge determined the teen committed both crimes, even if he can’t formally be found guilty because of his intellectual deficits.
Members of Singh’s family watched via an audio-video link from India this week as the teen returned to the High Court at Auckland for two final matters: suppression and how restrictive his compulsory mental health treatment will be.
There was no disagreement among lawyers that, for the safety of the public, the teen needs to continue treatment in the Mason Clinic’s Pōhutakawa Unit – a section of the secure psychiatric facility devoted to those with intellectual disabilities.
But the Crown sought a “special care recipient order”, typical of most homicide cases involving insanity, in which a defendant is held in a lockdown mental health facility for at least 10 years.
The defence, citing in part the defendant’s youth, instead asked Justice Layne Harvey to impose a similarly named but distinct “ordinary care recipient order”, which would allow his lockdown status to be reviewed after three years.
The judge decided the less restrictive of the two options best balanced the teen’s rehabilitation and the protection of the community. But he emphasised it did not guarantee freedom.
“I must still warn you that you will likely only be able to one day rejoin the community if you learn how to control your anger and not follow your anti-social friends,” Justice Harvey said.
“You have been involved in two violent events, including where a man was injured and, tragically, where another has died. So you need to work very hard with your clinicians to prove that you will never seriously hurt anyone ever again.
“Your future will depend on it.”
During his involvement hearing in April, prosecutors had a lower standard of proof – “on the balance of probabilities” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt” – than had it been a standard trial.
Still, judges have noted, the cases against the teen appeared strong.
The screwdriver attack, for instance, was on video.
The victim was another teen who, on the night of July 20, 2023, was targeted by the defendant and others with a barrage of punches and kicks in the backseat of a car.
“After being dragged out of the vehicle, [the victim] screamed and tried to protect himself by curling into the foetal position,” Justice Harvey recalled of the attack in Henderson, which he described as “unrelenting and extreme violence”.
“You used a screwdriver to hit [him] many times, stopping only after an associate pulled you away and told you, ‘No stabbing’.”
The victim woke up in hospital with a chipped tooth, various other injuries and apparent memory loss.
But the defendant wouldn’t be charged with injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm until months later, when detectives seized his phone and found the video during the unrelated murder investigation.
The murder occurred in December 2023 at Massey’s Royal Reserve when the teen and older co-defendant Lorenzo Tangira, who is serving a life sentence, turned their aggression on the small-statured security guard.
Singh, 25, had moved to Auckland from India five years earlier to pursue higher education.
After a night of drinking at a nearby home, the two co-defendants wandered over to the park about 200m away. The teenager was the first to engage the security guard in an altercation, but Tangira quickly jumped in, according to the summary of facts that Tangira agreed to when he pleaded guilty to murder.
“[Tangira] grabbed Mr Singh by the rear of his hi-vis vest and swung him around and proceeded to forcefully punch him repeatedly in the face,” the document states.
Singh fell to the ground, bleeding from his facial injuries, before scrambling to his work car and trying to escape the scene. The teenager jumped on the bonnet, trying to stop him.
“During the pursuit of Mr Singh, Mr Tangira’s hand was shut in the door of the vehicle,” court documents state. “After this, Mr Tangira tried to reach Mr Singh through the back of the vehicle.
“When Mr Singh was eventually pulled from the vehicle, the assault by [the teen] and Mr Tangira continued.”
He was punched, kicked and stomped on, knocking out his teeth and breaking his jaw in multiple places. His skull, cheekbones and orbital sockets sustained multiple fractures and he suffered significant brain damage, an autopsy would reveal.
“Footwear impressions showed kicking and stomping-type damage to his face, throat and neck,” documents state.
Nearby residents heard Singh’s calls for help during the attack and alerted police. But by the time officers arrived, the defendants were gone and Singh had died.
Police arrived at the teen’s home about 1.34am, where they found his mother actively trying to remove blood stains from clothes with bleach. Both defendants were at the home and the teen was acting “loud, agitated and aggressive”.
Police would later find the teen’s palm print on the bonnet of Singh’s damaged work vehicle and noticed what seemed to be recent injuries to his hands.
Intercepted calls would reveal he had returned to the home “covered in blood” and promptly took two showers, while his father burned his shoes after noticing they were “full of blood”. He showed both parents an incriminating photo of the victim, which they encouraged him to delete.
Additionally, a witness at the scene had heard someone yell out the teen’s name, followed by the statement: “Get the f*** out of here.”
During this week’s hearing, Crown solicitor Alysha McClintock noted a psychological report recommended the more restrictive of the two treatment options for the teen.
“It is an escalation of very serious violence,” she said of the two cases.
A conservative approach would best serve the public’s interests, especially after a health assessor’s report finding him to be a high risk of further violent offending, she said.
But the judge ultimately sided with defence lawyers James Olsen and Ron Mansfield, KC, who argued a 10-year minimum – on top of the two years he has already been in custody – would be crushing for a person so young and possibly demotivate him from doing the hard work necessary to re-enter society someday.
Many of the risk factors that are currently identified “are considered dynamic and changeable” with rehabilitation, Olsen said.
Justice Harvey noted the report recommending the special care order did not consider that the defence had already conceded the teen should currently be in a lockdown facility regardless of the minimum term.
The report noted the teen suffers a mild intellectual disability, ADHD and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. He struggles to manage emotional responses, especially when under the influence of substances, and he is easily led by anti-social friends, various reports have stated.
“Situations where you feel challenged or wronged and are seeking payback can make this risk worse,” the judge noted.
But ultimately, the judge said, he didn’t see much difference between the two options.
The judge acknowledged his permanent name suppression decision went against the wishes of Singh’s family and, seemingly, the defendant himself.
It was also noted, however, the teen’s stance has changed during different interviews. His care manager at the Mason Clinic advocated for suppression, stating in a report that because of the patient’s difficulties with higher-level reasoning he lacked capacity to give an opinion.
Making his name public would likely add to his frustration and impede his rehabilitation, the care manager said.
It was also suggested it could impede his eventual transition into the community, with community service organisations not wanting to work with him if they knew what he had done.
The judge worried if that was to be the case, the only rehabilitation services in the community that would take him would be those that serve others with “pro-criminal or pro-violence attitudes”.
“Given his tendency to be easily influenced by anti-social peers, this would be concerning for his successful rehabilitation and reintegration,” the judge said.
He noted the teen’s background of trauma, which included exposure to family violence, parental substance abuse and more than 20 Oranga Tamaraki reports dating to when he was 5 months old. His mother also suffered mental health issues and was in and out of his life, the judge said.
The Crown argued any consequences of publication would be no more than what is usually associated with that type of offending.
McClintock argued the test for suppression was not the teen’s prospects for rehabilitation but whether publication would cause extreme hardship. Given his youth and disabilities, the judge said the two concepts were intertwined.
“Significant rehabilitation will be essential for [him] to live a stable and fulfilling life despite his many disadvantages,” the judge said.
He also acknowledged but ultimately disagreed with the prosecution’s argument that the public’s interest in knowing who has committed such violent acts outweighs the other factors.
Knowledge of the teen’s identity wouldn’t have helped Singh given the randomness of the attack, the judge said.
“I must assume that those persons involved in [the teen’s] care and treatment will act responsibly in both categorising his risk and managing extensions of his secure care recipient order,” he said.
“This safeguard reduces the public safety interest in knowing his identity.”
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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