Poutawa 'Puk' Kireka was sentenced in the Napier District Court.
A drug-dealing Mongrel Mobster faces a lengthy jail term after he seriously injured a good Samaritan who tried to rescue the gang member’s partner from a violent assault and kidnapping.
Poutawa Whiti Kireka, 36, forced the elderly man’s car off the road after he and his wife stopped to pick up the bloodied, injured, fleeing woman early one morning in 2022.
He then opened the door of their car and punched the 76-year-old driver several times in the face.
The good Samaritan tried to escape by driving away, but – already injured – crashed through a metal gate and fence and ended up on a pile of concrete.
The couple’s car was written off and the man suffered extensive injuries.
These included serious brain haematomas, extensive facial fractures and bruising, a deep wound on his lip, and a 4cm cut on his neck.
“This type of offending does strike fear into the heart of the community,” Crown prosecutor Cameron Stuart said in the Napier District Court on Friday.
Kireka appeared for sentencing on a raft of charges related to events after he kidnapped his partner as she tried to seek help from the Napier police station in September 2022.
He was also sentenced for organising drug-smuggling into Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison while he was on remand.
The charges included kidnapping, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, supplying methamphetamine, possessing cannabis for sale, possessing and selling cannabis, assault on a person in a family relationship and offences under the Corrections Act.
“Mr Kireka wants to express how remorseful he is,” defence counsel Harry Redwood said.
However, the court was told that good the Samaritan and his wife, whose names were suppressed, did want to be defined as victims and did not want any engagement with him.
Judge Russell Collins imposed a total sentence of 10 years and 10 months in prison for all the offences, with a minimum non-parole period of three years and 10 months for the grievous bodily harm offending.
“It was an attack on a good Samaritan. Someone who had stopped to help a woman in need. The community wants people to stop to help people in distress,” Judge Collins said.
“You brought about a situation where you created a disincentive for people to stop at night and help. This ... is a serious aggravating factor.”
Kireka, known as “Puk”, went viral on social media in 2021 after US rapper 50 Cent criticised him for his facial tattoo – the word “Notorious” covers the bottom half of his face.
At that time, Kireka said he had turned his back on a life of crime, and was pursuing a career as a fitness coach.
However, the court was told that in central Napier about 4.29am on September 25, 2022, his partner ran away from Kireka, who was driving a 2017 Lexus LC500H car.
Injured and covered in blood, she ran to the door of the Napier police station to seek help, but it was closed.
Over the next seven minutes, Kireka violently tried to wrestle her back into the car, at one point running over the roof and bonnet to catch her and grabbing her by the hair.
Kireka’s partner managed to escape from the car again on Napier’s Marine Parade, where the elderly couple stopped for her.
She got into their car and they offered to take her somewhere safe.
They drove past Kireka’s stopped vehicle and he then pursued them at speed, stopping abruptly in front of them and attacking the elderly driver.
“You’re an extremely powerful man. Your business is fitness … He was old, vulnerable and seated,” Judge Collins said.
The victim had suffered “really serious harm”, he said.
After the couple’s car crashed, Kireka forced his partner back into his car, but the driver of a third vehicle, who also tried to help, called the police.
The woman was found at a property in Clive about three hours later but told police she had been involved in a car accident and did not want to make a statement.
“I’ll only get the blame and it will only get worse for me. I can’t sign anything,” the woman told officers.
However, Kireka’s attack on her in central Napier had been caught on CCTV.
Police later searched his house and found 267g of cannabis in ziplock bags.
Court documents detail an earlier assault by Kireka on the woman, on September 11, 2022, at the BP service station in Clive, when he was driving a ute emblazoned with the name of his online fitness business, Fit2Guk.
The court was also told a contraband cellphone was found in Kireka’s cell while he was in prison on remand.
During January and February 2023, police intercepted 450 calls and 3000 text messages from that phone, which showed he was arranging for drugs to be delivered to the prison to sell to other prisoners, netting thousands of dollars.
Some of those communications were to the partner to whom he had kidnapped.
Stuart said Kireka’s phone was being intercepted for months and not once was there any mention of the woman’s welfare.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.