A passenger who helped cover up his friend’s road rage shooting of a 15-year-old girl has been sentenced to two months of community detention.
Hillpark resident Sione Ngata, 28, was initially jointly charged with Alfred Latu, 27, for the shooting that left the teenage bystander with two serious but ultimately non-fatal gunshot wounds.
Auckland District Court jurors found Latu guilty of the shooting earlier this year. He awaits sentencing next month.
Ngata, meanwhile, avoided the trial with last-minute guilty pleas to two less serious charges: possession of ammunition and being an accessory after the fact to discharging a weapon with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
He faced a maximum five-year sentence as he appeared without his co-defendant today before Judge Nevin Dawson.
“The way you behaved is unacceptable to the community,” the judge said as a standing room only crowd of supporters filled the small courtroom for the roughly 10-minute hearing.
“You should not be aiding people offending in such a serious manner.”
The seemingly random and shocking shooting attracted widespread media coverage two years ago as police announced a manhunt and said it was only with “some luck” that they weren’t conducting a murder investigation.
Court documents, now public for the first time, outline how the shooting was preceded by anger over a common driving manoeuvre on Auckland’s Southern Motorway.
The victim was one of four passengers in a Mazda Premacy people mover van driven by her father when the vehicle entered the northbound Mt Wellington onramp around 10pm on May 16, 2023.
As it entered the motorway, the van overtook a Mazda Axela driven by Latu before returning to the slow lane, according to the police summary of facts agreed to by Ngata only.
“This angered Mr Latu, who overtook the complainants in their vehicle, changed back into the far-left lane and heavily braked, forcing the complainants to take evasive action,” court documents state. “This action is commonly referred to as ‘brake-checking’.”
Latu then pulled his car up alongside the van and side-swiped it, causing moderate damage, witnesses told police. The defendants also threw a can at the van, gesturing and yelling for the other driver to pull over, court documents state.
The van tried to accelerate away while one of the occupants called 111, but Latu – with Ngata in the front passenger seat and an unidentified person in the back seat – continued to follow and taunt, the summary of facts states. He continued to brake-check and “drive extremely close” to the van until it exited the motorway at St Lukes Rd, authorities said.
As the chase continued into Mt Albert, Latu held a Glock 9mm pistol out the driver’s side window and fired, shattering the rear window of the van, documents state. The teen girl’s mum, also a passenger in the van, recorded the shooting. Two more shots were fired.
The teen victim received gunshot wounds to her chest, just above her heart, and in her right thigh. Another female passenger received bruising on her lower back but was lucky – that bullet was slowed down by the back seat she was leaning against.
“In a desperate attempt to escape, the complainants drove their vehicle across the centre grass median onto the incorrect side of the road,” court documents state. “Mr Latu abandoned the pursuit and the complainants fled.”
The victims parked at a Z service station in Sandringham, about 12km from where the on-ramp confrontation had started, and waited for emergency responders to arrive.
Police executed a search warrant at Ngata’s South Auckland home the following night and found the car his co-defendant had been driving outside with the registration plates and warrant of fitness removed.
The plates were found in Ngata’s garage, with his fingerprints on them. The warrant of fitness sticker was found in his bedroom.
During the bedroom search, police also found one 9mm bullet and one shell.
“In explanation, the defendant Mr Ngata said he was a passenger in the vehicle and offered no explanation to the shots being fired,” the summary of facts states. “However, [he] complained that the complainant’s vehicle deliberately rammed their vehicle at least twice.”
At today’s hearing, Judge Dawson referenced a pre-sentence report that assessed the defendant as having little insight into the seriousness of the crime or remorse.
The assessment found him to be a medium risk of reoffending or harm to others, with the report writer citing poor decision-making skills and negative peers.
But he also noted that Ngata had no prior history other than unrelated driving offences.
Defence lawyer Marie Taylor-Cyphers suggested a starting point sentence of eight to 10 months’ imprisonment, based on similar cases, and the Crown didn’t disagree.
Taylor-Cyphers pointed out that her client had already served 48 days in jail awaiting trial followed by 792 days on restrictive, electronically monitored bail with good compliance.
She suggested “a modest community-based sentence” would be the most suitable outcome given the circumstances.
Judge Dawson agreed, adding 12 months’ supervision to the two-month community detention order.
Laughing and whooping could be heard among Ngata’s large crowd of supporters immediately outside the courtroom after the decision was announced.
It didn’t “appear to be the most pro-social” support network, the judge quipped to the lawyers before moving on to the next case in the busy workload.
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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