“Your actions have left two families in bits. You are disgusting and what you did is unforgivable.”
Huriwaka was twice put on trial for murder. The first, in June 2021, resulted in a hung jury. His retrial ended in September 2022, when a new jury opted to instead find him guilty of manslaughter after about five hours of deliberations.
Prosecutors alleged during both trials that Huriwaka harboured a year-long grudge against acquaintance Bruce Lee Ngamu as he sat in jail from February 2019 to February 2020. He believed Ngamu had given a statement about him to police, although his jail term was unrelated to the statement, prosecutors said.
Soon after his release from jail, Huriwaka drove his mother’s Honda station wagon with two others to a Bairds Rd home in Ōtara where Ngamu and his brother Joseph Ngamu lived. He asked Bruce Lee Ngamu about the police statement but left without incident, witnesses said.
Huriwaka returned later that night with two underage teen associates and Michael Keith Robinson, a Killer Beez gang member he had befriended while in prison. Robinson, who didn’t know anyone at the property, was concealing a gun he had picked up that evening.
While inside the property, Robinson pulled out the gun and pointed it at Joseph Ngamu’s chest. Joseph Ngamu grabbed the gun and pulled it down but was shot in the stomach. In the melee that ensued, Ikitogia rushed to help and also was shot. He died at the scene a short time later.
Huriwaka and Robinson were arrested days later.
Robinson pleaded guilty to murder in 2021 and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 12-and-a-half years.
Both men were also found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm for the gunshot wound to Joseph Ngamu, who survived.
Crown prosecutor David Stevens did not suggest during the trials that Huriwaka and Robinson had intended to kill anyone that night. But Huriwaka “had a score to settle”, and so they jointly executed a dangerous plan to use a loaded weapon to intimidate the Ngamu family knowing there was a risk of someone getting killed, he said.
During both trials, defence lawyer Shane Cassidy argued that his client wasn’t aware his co-defendant had a gun.
Huriwaka’s Black Power gang affiliation further suggested he wouldn’t have been part of a revenge plot, Cassidy argued, noting that the president of the Rotorua chapter of Black Power had been visiting the home where the double-shooting occurred. Cassidy dismissed a plan to shoot up the place as implausible, describing it as akin to his client signing his own death warrant.
But Justice Davison roundly rejected the ignorance claim during today’s sentencing, describing the defendant’s pre-meditation as a serious aggravating feature.
“The planning that went onto what happened that night was undertaken principally, it seems, by you,” the judge said. “You and Mr Robinson had clearly planned for him to take the firearm onto the property for the purpose of threatening the residents.”
In determining the end sentence, Justice Davison also considered Huriwaka’s 40 previous convictions between 2008 and 2020 - including six instances of violent offending and three aggravated robberies - and the fact he had been released on parole just 10 days before the fatal shooting.
But he also considered Huriwaka’s personal circumstances, which included being abandoned by his mother at age 6 and having a “transient” childhood in which he moved between his grandmother and violent, Black Power-affiliated uncles. He never had a relationship with his father, who was a Mongrel Mob member.
The physical abuse he endured in childhood resulted in “a hated and an anger towards others”, the judge noted. But in the three years since his murder arrest, Huriwaka has taken steps to remove himself from the gang life, including requesting prison officials to put him in segregation so it will be easier for him to disassociate with other members, he said.
“You say you are genuinely sorry for your actions ...” Justice Davison said. “You say you wish to make things right for them. There is, of course, nothing you can do and nothing you can say to take back what you have done.”
The judge started with a sentence of 10 years but added three months due to Huriwaka’s extensive criminal history. The judge then discounted it by 25 per cent, with an end result of seven years and eight months, to reflect the defendant’s rough childhood, his remorse and the fact he had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter after the first trial. The Crown rejected the offer, opting to instead try him again for murder.
Neither prosecutors nor the defence argued for a minimum period of imprisonment, noting what they characterised as Huriwaka’s “secondary role” in the shooting. But Justice Davison said the normal non-parole period, amounting to one-third of a sentence, was insufficient given Huriwaka’s “critical role” in carrying out the revenge plot.
During a victim impact statement at the start of the trial, Ikitogia’s cousin said the “big-hearted boy” who she regarded as a brother would never want her to remain mad. She said she hoped that God would point Huriwaka in the right direction while he’s in prison, but letting go continues to be difficult.
“Josh died in horrendous circumstances, and I am tormented by the thought of what he endured,” she said. “We will mourn the loss of our boy until the day we stop breathing.”
