Every Christmas, police leave their own families safe at home and go to help the victims of harm and violence. Constables Toni Woodroffe and Kurtis Heketoa-King share their experiences.
Gabriel Tuporo, 28, was ordered to begin his prison sentence after his appeal was dismissed.
Tuporo was sentenced to two years and two months for intentionally hitting Hohepa Waipouri with his car.
Justice Timothy Brewer deemed the sentence “light” and noted the seriousness of the premeditated attack.
A man who intentionally mowed down his sister’s long-term and abusive partnerhas been ordered to begin serving his prison sentence after an appeal attempt was quickly shot down this week.
Gabriel Tuporo, 28, told authorities he lost it on the night of Christmas Eve 2023 after years of ruminating over physical abuse he had witnessed the other man inflict on his sister.
He was sentenced by Judge Sanjay Patel in the Manukau District Court last December to two years and two months’ imprisonment but was then allowed to remain on bail, at the request of his lawyer, pending an appeal.
Had the sentence been two years or less, the judge could have considered swapping a prison term with a non-custodial alternative like electronically monitored home detention.
Defence lawyer Hannah Kim hoped to convince a higher court that her client’s discounts for remorse and background should have been higher and his sentence starting point lower, nudging him just enough over the cutoff point to allow such a scenario.
The appeal hearing finally took place this week before Justice Timothy Brewer in the High Court at Auckland, but it didn’t go the way his lawyer would have hoped.
Gabriel Tuporo appears in the dock at Manukau District Court in December 2024, sentenced for a hit and run that left a pedestrian in a critical condition on Christmas Eve 2023. Photo / Michael Craig
“The end sentence ... is light,” Justice Brewer determined in a seven-page written decision released the next day. “The appeal is dismissed.”
He ordered Tuporo to report to Manukau Police Station the following afternoon to begin serving his sentence.
According to the agreed summary of facts for the case, Tuporo had been driving along Hills Rd in Ōtara around 6.35pm when he noticed victim, Hohepa Waipouri, and pulled a U-turn to confront him “about family harm matters”.
“What do you think you are doing?” Waipouri said as Tuporo got out of the vehicle and tried to get into a fight, swearing and yelling at him.
Tuporo responded by threatening to stab the other man with a pocketknife he was holding. After approaching Waipouri aggressively with the knife, the other man ran and sought safety at a nearby dairy. Tuporo, meanwhile, got back into his car and drove to the same dairy.
“Come out! Come out!” he yelled, adding about 20 seconds later, before driving away: “You wait. I’ll get you.”
Waipouri eventually left the dairy and continued walking down the roadway as he had been doing before the confrontation. But as he did so, Tuporo again spotted him from his car. This time, he was approaching the victim from behind.
Gabriel Tuporo mowed down his sister's partner with his Suzuki Swift during a confrontation on Hills Rd in Ōtara on Christmas Eve 2023. Photo / Google
“The defendant accelerated his vehicle, crossed over to the wrong side of the road and drove on to the footpath,” court documents state. “He struck the complainant from behind with the vehicle at speed. The impact propelled the complainant into the windshield and caused him to go over the vehicle and on to the road.”
Tuporo then sped away from the scene.
In a victim impact statement, Waipouri described spending two weeks in a coma at Auckland City Hospital. He had no recollection of the incident itself, he said.
Despite the victim’s memory loss, the case against Tuporo had been strong from the outset, thanks in part to an interview the defendant gave police.
“He made full admissions to the offending, citing years of pain and deep-seated hatred towards the complainant due to the latter’s violence towards the defendant’s sister,” the agreed summary of facts states. “He said he panicked after the collision and drove home.”
Tuporo was initially charged with failing to stop and ascertain injury and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, which carries a maximum possible punishment of 14 years’ imprisonment.
But prosecutors agreed to substitute that charge with one of wounding with intent to injure, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Hannah Kim argued in December that her client should receive a non-custodial sentence in light of the background to the offending, his remorse, his health issues and anxiety, and the effect imprisonment would have on Tuporo’s two young children, including a 2-year-old with autism for whom he was the primary caregiver.
Gabriel Tuporo attempted unsuccessfully to appeal his prison sentence after he was charged out of Manukau District Court with an intentional hit and run that left a pedestrian in a critical condition on Christmas Eve 2023. Photo / Michael Craig
She echoed many of those arguments this week, describing the end sentence as manifestly excessive because it did not give enough weight to her client’s personal circumstances.
A psychological report said Tuporo was “experiencing intolerable pressure” and was “overwhelmed by anger” due to his inability to help his sister. He was assessed as being at low risk of reoffending.
Crown prosecutor Annelise Chan noted in December that the district court judge had already granted generous discounts during a sentence indication hearing in July. She opposed any additional discount for “provocation”, arguing that Tuporo’s actions did not meet the legal definition of having been provoked, given that he was the one who initiated contact with the victim that night.
The district court judge allowed 50% in total discounts: 25% for guilty plea, 10% for remorse and his lack of any previous convictions, 10% for his rehabilitative prospects and 5% for the difficulties a prison sentence would impose on his sons. The judge declined a further discount for his background, outlined in the psychological report.
Kim argued in the High Court that the discount for remorse and previous good behaviour should have been 20% instead of 10%.
Justice Brewer noted that in sentence appeals, his job is to consider “the appropriateness of the end sentence rather than how it was calculated”.
Justice Timothy Brewer in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / NZME
The sentence starting point considered by the district court judge could have been higher due to the premeditation involved in the attack, Brewer added.
The defendant also benefited from a guilty plea discount that was too high, the High Court judge said, explaining that Tuporo was given the maximum 25% even though he only pleaded guilty after he “negotiated with the Crown” for a less serious charge.
Justice Brewer also noted that the district court judge’s uplift of three months for Tuporo’s failure to stop and ascertain injury could have been in the range of five months instead.
“Mr Tuporo could have been in no doubt of the force with which he struck the victim,” Brewer explained. “Having achieved his intention, he simply left his victim in his injured state.”
In addition, Justice Brewer added, the combined 20% in discounts the defendant received for former good character, remorse and rehabilitation prospects was already “generous” and not deserving of the extra 10% proposed by the defence.
“For one thing, there has been no tangible expression of remorse,” Brewer wrote. “Given the long background of antagonism and anger leading up to the attack, remorse cannot be given real effect at sentencing just because it is expressed.”
The offending, he concluded, was very serious. When looking at the case in its totality, Tuporo was lucky to have received the sentence that he did, the judge indicated.
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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