Dome Valley kidnapping: Two years' jail for attackers

Michelle Blom, far left, and Cameron Hakeke, fourth from left, were jailed for the attack. Nicola Jones, Julie-Ann Torrance and Wayne Blackett, far right, are yet to be sentenced. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A mother-of-two and a transgender prostitute involved in separate kidnappings and attacks on a teen found bound and near dead in the Dome Valley have each been sentenced to more than two years' jail.

Michelle Blom was last month found guilty by a High Court jury of helping kidnap the then 19-year-old woman off Auckland's Karangahape Road in May 2016.

The teen was later detained and sexually violated in an Auckland basement before being taken to Dome Valley, bashed in the head with a hammer and left for dead, although Blom was found to have not been involved in these acts.

The same jury found Cameron Hakeke guilty of taking part in a separate attack on the young woman last April, during which he cut her hair and took part in her kidnapping.

In the High Court at Auckland today, Justice Christian Whata sentenced Blom to two years and nine months in prison and Hakeke to two years and five months' jail.

Justice Whata said Blom's act of kidnapping was among the most serious cases he knew of because it led to the young woman being violently detained for about 20 hours before the attempt was made to brutally kill her.

Although Blom, 30, had not been a party to those attacks, she did not intervene to help the woman, he said.

"[The young woman was] 20 hours in her home, she knew about it, she did nothing," Justice Whata said.

However, Justice Whata acknowledged Blom's difficult childhood and that she attempted suicide three times, one of which led to her losing custody of her children.

She also expressed genuine remorse at the attack, had a good chance of rehabilitation having been offered a job upon her release.

Hakeke, 34, however, had not expressed remorse, despite at one time living and working as a prostitute with the woman, and Justice Whata found few mitigating factors in his favour.

Blom and Hakeke's sentences come after Wayne Blackett, Nicola Jones and Julie-Ann Torrance, pleaded guilty or were found guilty of attempting to murder the young woman.

They are still awaiting sentencing.

During the trial, the court heard the attacks started after Jones became angry with the young woman early last year, believing the woman had slept with her partner.

Then in April 2016, the young woman was lured to Hakeke's Newmarket flat under the false pretence of a drug deal.

There, the victim told the court, her childhood friend Jones, and Torrance and Hakeke, ambushed, bashed and tasered her with a stun gun before threatening to repeat the attack if she did not leave Auckland for good.

Then one month later, Jones, Torrance, Blom and a sixth accused, Jaclyn Keates, picked the woman up from Karangahape Rd and took her to Blom's West Auckland home, where prosecutors say she was bashed with a cricket wicket and bat and sexually violated.

Following a prolonged attack, Jones, Torrance and Blackett drove to Conical Peak Rd in the Dome Valley with the young woman tied and wrapped in a tarp in the boot of their car, according to prosecutors.

After trying to strangle the woman, Blackett took a hammer and delivered at least 10 blows to the woman's head, causing multiple fractures and depressing her brain by 2cm, prosecutors said.

Keates pleaded guilty to her part in the May assault and was sentenced to jail last December.