In March 2018, the family had been out to enjoy a day of picking blueberries when Milne passed their car in the Awhitu Peninsula area while driving his dad's Toyota.
He swerved to avoid a collision and crashed into a drain and fence.
The relatively minor crash would lead to a prolonged high-speed chase in which Milne forced the family to stop their car several times and was verbally abusive.
During those altercations, Milne told the family he belonged to a gang and that he was going to kill them.
On one occasion he got out of his vehicle with his pit bull terrier, causing the fearful complainants to lock themselves in their car.
According to court documents, Milne threatened that his dog was going to eat them.
During the last chase, Milne followed the family for some seven kilometres and reached speeds of more than 140km/h.
In his later interview with the police, he accepted that this was "putting other people at risk" and described his state at that time as being "at boiling point".
Towards the end of this chase he pulled up alongside them on the wrong side of the road and demanded they stop.
The family declined and Milne then deliberately rammed their car, causing it to spin out of control and crash into a bank.
Flipping in the air, the family's car landed upside down on top of Milne's vehicle before sliding off when he braked suddenly.
The two children were thrown from their car and landed on the road.
They had earlier taken their seatbelts off because they thought they might need to make a hurried exit, court documents read.
The complainants' car narrowly avoided going down a steep ravine that was about 100 metres deep.
But despite the two children lying injured, Milne approached the car to continue his attack.
"Get out of the f**king car, I'm going to smash you! You f**king Asian c***! F**king Asians!" Milne yelled.
In a decision released today, Justice Forrest Miller, Justice Simon Moore and Justice Robert Dobson deemed that what had unfolded "constituted a hate crime".
The Court of Appeal judges lowered Milne's discount for personal mitigating circumstances to 20 per cent.
"Given Mr Milne's forthright and racist justification for his conduct in his police interview on the day of the offending, a complete reversal of attitude would be required for Mr Milne to acknowledge genuine remorse for the physical, emotional and financial harm he has caused.
"Whilst the pre-sentence report recorded that Mr Milne described his own behaviour 'as appalling and that he is remorseful', there are suggestions that he sought to minimise the seriousness of his offending and that some responses may have been prompted by his mother," the decision read.
Similarly, his discount for guilty pleas was reduced to 15 per cent.
The outcome was a sentence of four years nine months' imprisonment on the most
serious charge.
