Auckland resident George Whichman has frequently been before the courts for impersonating police officers.
Auckland resident George Whichman was ready to start fresh, and the colourful courthouse regular thought he had a decent plan.
Facing charges yet again for impersonating police – this time to brazenly detain residents of a North Shore home as he and others pilfered cash and valuables – he had opted days earlier to ditch his ankle monitor and stop showing up to hearings.
Instead, he focused on a month-long scheme to obtain a fraudulent passport, and now he was at Auckland International Airport – toting his carry-on baggage and takeaway KFC as he prepared to board a flight to Rarotonga.
He envisioned it as a place where he could put his voluminous, sometimes violent criminal history behind him and not be pestered by the legitimate officers he often portrayed.
The plan was nearly successful.
Whichman got past Customs’ self-service SmartGate and was about to go through an airport security checkpoint when a plain-clothed officer thought he recognised Whichman’s signature neck tattoo of a cartoon shark.
Although the two had never met, the litigious defendant was well-known in the law enforcement community.
But Whichman was also alert to his surroundings and got a feeling that something wasn’t right.
As an aviation security officer approached to unsubtly check out Whichman’s tattoo, Whichman dropped his belongings and bolted. He would remain on the run for months, but Interpol put an alert out for him and he never tried to leave the country again.
“That’s five-and-a-half months of freedom when I should have been in prison,” Whichman recently explained when contacted by the Herald at Rimutaka Prison, where he is expected to remain until his release date early next year.
He spoke in the capacity of his own legal representative, having eschewed formally trained lawyers in multiple hearings since October, including four separate sentencings. His most recent hearing, in May, was to appeal his false passport sentence.
Justice Timothy Brewer denied the appeal in a written decision released earlier this month.
Whichman, 35, won’t say where he got the uniforms used in the most recent heists, but he turned them over to authorities this year in exchange for Auckland District Court Judge Evangelos Thomas shaving two months off his sentence.
“This is what happens when you know the system too well, and police leave their patches – uniforms – lying around,” he told the Herald, declining further explanation.
The defendant ended up in April with an end sentence of two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to two counts of impersonating police, two counts of aggravated assault and burglary.
Whichman, co-defendant Daniel Huata and an unidentified person had arrived at a Birkenhead home just after midnight on April 13, 2023 while wearing what appeared to be police-issued high-vis vests.
“You had thought about this carefully,” Judge Thomas said, explaining that the deception worked quite well at first, with the victims compliant as the group rifled through their home.
“Throughout, you all kept up this ruse of being police – one of you even taking the trouble to address one of the others as ‘Sergeant’.”
Whichman told the victims he had been called to the home because of a report of firearms.
Huata followed an occupant to the garage after it was admitted air rifles were stored there, while Whichman jotted details on a notepad while questioning the strangers.
He also went upstairs and demanded to see behind a locked door, asking if there was anything illegal in the room.
It was suggested to the victims that they were running a drug stash house, but they denied it and no drugs were ever found, the judge noted.
In an interview with the Herald shortly after the incident, one of the residents explained that they were all overseas students who had been terrified by the home invasion.
The ruse started to fail when an occupant noticed that the third purported officer was stuffing belongings into his pockets, including a wallet.
The trio made a quick exit but was followed out of the home, with one of the victims demanding their items be returned.
“When one advanced on a member of your group, they got a punch to the head for their trouble,” the judge noted.
“Undeterred, the victim got up and chased after the offender who was fleeing the address. He caught him, tackled him to the ground. While that offender retaliated with punches, another of your group kicked the victim to the neck and head.”
The third member of the group kicked another of the victims in the head as he emerged from the house to help the other victim. That person pulled out a gun and pointed it at the victims before the trio jumped into a getaway car driven by a fourth man.
The group had managed to steal about $10,000 cash, valuables that were likely worth several thousand dollars and the keys to three vehicles at the address, court documents state. A resident of the home told the Herald the cash had been for university fees.
It was Whichman’s second such attempt in as many weeks, although undoubtedly the most successful. He and an associate had knocked on the door of another house in the early morning hours of March 27, 2023, again dressed as police. But the home occupants in that situation were immediately suspicious, shutting the door and saying they would call the real police.
Whichman described the second impersonation attempt as a “mistaken identity” situation – referring to the victims – and added: “It will never happen again.”
While representing himself, Whichman managed to convince the Crown to withdraw a kidnapping charge for the second burglary. He also got the Crown to acknowledge it could not prove Whichman engaged in any of the physical violence or that the gun brandished at the victims was not a replica – both of which the sentencing judge described as “significant”.
Before Whichman managed to get the kidnapping charges removed, he admits he felt some trepidation given its maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.
That, he said, was one of his main motivations for trying to leave the country.
The plan began on the same day as the North Shore burglary.
Over a month, Whichman managed to open a fake RealMe account – an identity verification service managed by the Department of Internal Affairs.
Using the RealMe account and a fake driver’s licence, he was allowed to apply for a passport under urgency. It was approved.
On the same day the passport was delivered, Whichman decided not to appear at court. He instead booked the ticket to Rarotonga and showed up at the airport with his luggage on the afternoon of Saturday, May 20, 2023.
Unfortunately for him, a Detective Sergeant with the National Criminal Investigations Group was also at the airport for an unrelated matter.
“Whilst walking to the Secure Custom Control Room, I observed a male Pacific Islander aged approximately 30 years old of solid build,” the detective said in a statement submitted into evidence. “He had a large tattoo on his neck. This male was holding KFC.
“ ... I made brief eye contact with him. This male was familiar to me, although I had never met this male before.”
The detective immediately suspected it might be “well-known Auckland-based offender” Whichman. He was right, but before authorities could nab Whichman the wanted man “became startled” and fled, court documents state.
In a statement to the Herald, Whichman claimed he spent the following months travelling all over New Zealand with other fugitives as he lived out of hotels and Airbnbs.
“I was actually enjoying it,” he said.
Manukau District Court Judge David McNaughton described the passport scheme as “fairly premeditated” and very nearly successful when he sentenced Whichman on those charges in December. He ordered 22 months’ imprisonment but acknowledged the sentence would likely amount to time served.
Appearing via audio-video feed in the High Court at Auckland last month to appeal the sentence, Whichman argued that his scheme was less sophisticated than other passport fraud cases because he had his brother’s permission to use his driver’s licence. He suggested his scheme actually helped New Zealand in the long run.
“If it wasn’t for defendants such as myself, the New Zealand passport system wouldn’t be as strong as it is today,” he told the judge.
Whichman also opposed an order by the district court judge that he comply with post-detention conditions after his release, describing them as “a pain in the neck”.
“Mr Whichman complains that this condition sets him up to fail because he never complies with such conditions and they do not help him,” Justice Brewer explained in his decision.
“That is as may be. Nevertheless, there is no principled basis for disturbing that aspect of the judge’s decision.”
He concluded: “The sentence is not manifestly excessive. It is light”.
Whichman also received a four-month sentence last October for foiling his ankle bracelet to hide his location when on electronically monitored bail and a 13-month sentence at a separate December sentencing for breaching a protection order.
The crime spree was unfortunately not an aberration.
In her 2017 book Behind Bars, Herald crime reporter Anna Leask described Whichman as one of the larrikins in the high-security Paremoremo Prison, where he was then serving another lag for police impersonation.
Another inmate described an instance when Whichman allegedly stole a guard’s radio and used it to repeatedly announce a prison-wide emergency, causing staff to scramble each time.
“Eventually, Whichman’s voice was recognised by one of the prison staff, and the fun was over,” Leask reported.
Judges have repeatedly cited his extensive criminal history, dating back to Youth Court in 2005 and encompassing about 135 adult convictions. They include six impersonating police convictions in 2014, 2015 and 2020.
He made headlines in 2013 after what was thought to be New Zealand’s shortest ever prison release. Hours after his sentence ended for violence charges that included an assault on a prison guard, the then-Killer Beez member left his home in violation of post-detention conditions and went drinking with other gang members.
When police tracked him down that same afternoon, he had to be tasered before he was taken back into custody.
“We didn’t think he would last long,” a Parole Board member said at the time, explaining that he had to be released because he had served his full sentence.
On an earlier Parole Board hearing, Whichman had hit a prison officer who had smiled during a discussion about a psychological assessment. Parole was not granted.
“You are your own worst enemy,” a judge later said, answering, “No way,” when Whichman asked him for a second chance.
In October 2015, he was jailed again after pulling over a motorist, pretending to be a police officer. He returned to court just two months later after authorities said he impersonated a police detective - this time via a series of calls from inside prison.
Whichman’s sister told Stuff in 2015 that her brother was more theatrical than dangerous, while his then-defence lawyer Peter Eastwood described him as a “bright jokester”.
But the oddity of some crimes have been far overshadowed at other times by the stark violence. In 2019, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment after assaulting a woman while working as a property manager at an address operated by Destiny Church’s Man Up programme.
“Keep talking like that and I’ll drag you out of this house myself,” he told the woman before carrying out the threat.
On appeal in the High Court at Auckland, he claimed self-defence and said the woman had broken house rules by smoking methamphetamine and stealing other tenants’ clothes.
Justice Ian Gault said the explanation didn’t excuse the violence, but agreed to reduce his sentence to three-and-a-half months’ imprisonment.
Gault noted that Whichman was a “frequent litigant”, both for criminal appeals and civil matters challenging the conditions of his incarceration. The justice saw a glimmer of hope in that.
“His successes include getting a verdict overturned in the Court of Appeal ... and succeeding in a judicial review claim against the Department of Corrections,” Gault explained.
“He has even appeared on a leave application before the Supreme Court.
“The fact he was able to convey his case adequately, and presumably behave acceptably, indicate he is perhaps learning to work within the bounds of the law, and shows hope for his future.”
The sentiment was recently echoed by Judge Thomas, who described him during the North Shore burglary sentencing as “a clever man” who presented “clear and good arguments” and knew much more about the legal process than an ordinary person.
But Whichman went on to commit an aggravated robbery two months after Justice Gault’s statement, pointing an imitation “Uzi style” firearm at a person’s face over a disagreement and later asking for $50 but walking away when the stranger said he didn’t have any more money.
That time, Justice Gault dismissed the appeal, upholding the eight months and two weeks sentence handed out in the District Court.
He was given 11 months’ home detention and an order to attend rehabilitation at the Grace Foundation in 2022 after punching his then partner, hitting her with a chair and strangling her until she briefly lost consciousness, resulting in her hospitalisation.
He appealed on the grounds that the sentence was manifestly excessive, pointing out that the two had reconciled and arguing that he should have instead been sentenced to community detention. Justice Mark Woolford determined home detention was necessary but reduced the sentence by more than five months.
While still on home detention for those charges, he offended again in a similar manner and was sentenced to one year and seven months’ imprisonment.
“Mr Whichman is a violent man who lacks insight into his offending,” Justice Brewer said as he dismissed that appeal - a decision that was later upheld by the Court of Appeal.
While in jail last year awaiting trial on the most recent raft of charges, Whichman tried a new tactic - a somewhat popular but never successful sovereign citizen defence in which he claimed the courts have no jurisdiction over him. It again failed to sway the judiciary.
Weeks ago, Justice Layne Harvey dismissed Whichman’s latest lawsuit, in which it was argued the “cords policy” at Manukau District Court was unlawful and unreasonable. He argued it was unjust that he and other defendants were regularly required to remove items such as shoelaces, belts and drawstrings.
Reports prepared for Whichman’s many sentencing hearings over the years have often referred to a childhood marred by family violence and equally bad experiences in state care.
He left school at 14 and went to prison at age 18. He previously told authorities he used methamphetamine from ages 19 to 23 but stopped and was a member of the Killer Beez for five years before stepping away from gang life in 2016.
“Your background is difficult, and your story is a touching one...” Judge Thomas said earlier this year.
“Kids do not need much. But when they do not get the very basics they need, it is hard for them to come back from that. You are a living, breathing example, like many people are, of that.”
He admitted to a judge in 2022 that he had been on a “continual treadmill of sentences” for more than a decade and said he wanted to turn his life around. That judge also expressed a glimmer of hope that he might be ready to break the cycle.
During his most recent lock-up, Whichman said he has used his time wisely, studying law books and learning to become an electrician.
He hopes to go legitimate when he gets out, earning a living as a sparky, he said. He also wants to serve as an advocate for other prisoners.
However, he was recently denied parole. It’ll be 10 more months before he gets to put his ambitions to the test.
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.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
She struggled to understand how he got any enjoyment from what he had done to her.