Reporter Sam Cucchiara is squirted with a garden hose as he tries to question the tenants of the Blackburn home which include a Kiwi man and his daughters. Photo / A Current Affair
Reporter Sam Cucchiara is squirted with a garden hose as he tries to question the tenants of the Blackburn home which include a Kiwi man and his daughters. Photo / A Current Affair
A Kiwi man and his Australian-born daughters who are accused of bullying and attacking their Melbourne neighbours say they've received death threats since a story aired on television.
Rob Rakei, originally from Taupō, and his daughters Saige, 18, and Tynawyer, 16, can be seen on the footage from Nine Newsshow A Current Affair, hosing down the news crew as they're approached about their violent behaviour caught on their neighbour's CCTV.
Disability pensioner Margaret Stokes, 59, lives at the Blackburn home with daughter Rachel. Her son had earlier moved out because of the abuse, she says in the news item.
One of Rakei's daughters can be seen throwing a rock at Rachel as Rakei comes up and laughs in her face. It also features them threatening the family with a machete.
The reporter stands on the street and tries to question the family, which includes the daughters' boyfriends, he is then repeatedly drenched by a hose they share between themselves on the front lawn.
Rakei heads back inside the house as the daughters and their boyfriends deny doing anything wrong, despite the confronting CCTV footage.
Stokes and her daughter say they feel like prisoners in their own home.
Former Taupō man Robert Rakei laughs at the news crew from A Current Affair as he leaves his Blackburn, Melbourne, home recently. Image / A Current Affair
However, when contacted by the Herald, the girls' estranged Australian mother Tracy Allan said since the story aired earlier this week, Rakei had suffered two brain bleeds and was only yesterday released from hospital.
Rakei along with Tynawyer and another daughter at the house have since been put in "safe motel accommodation" by police since the story.
Saige has been put in alternative accommodation.
Allan had been told the incidents started after a ball went over the fence of her ex's property. Allan claimed that when Saige went to retrieve it she was chased and hit in the back with pick axe as she climbed the fence.
"When Saige went to get it she got hit by a young lady next door in the back with pick axe and so the story goes on."
Allan said when A Current Affair was notified and began working on a story, her daughters and Rakei were "hounded".
Since it aired they had all received death threats.
"Aca hounded them, hanging round almost stalking them for days with cameras. I myself and certain members of family [have] received death threats [and their] address been shared numerous times on Facebook."
Allan claimed that the story had portrayed them as "animals".
"This whole story betrayed [sic] them to be animals and that's not the case. The neighbours are crying, saying they did this and that but no one is listening to what the neighbours did to them."
Allan said she hadn't seen Saige and Tynawyer for a couple of years, but kept in touch with another daughter who had kept her informed of what happened.
She said Rakei had been in Melbourne for more than 20 years since moving from Taupō. Her daughters were Australian and had never been to New Zealand.
Reporter Sam Cucchiara is squirted with a garden hose as he tries to question the tenants of the Blackburn home which include a Kiwi man and his daughters. Photo / A Current Affair
"My girls are Aussie, they can't be deported. Very unfair how things get edited to suit Aca."
Allan said she and Rakei hadn't been together for more than 15 years.
However, the stress of the story had seen him hospitalised with two brain bleeds.
When she previously had custody of her daughters they "were looked up to by everyone". However, since moving in with their dad that had changed, she said.
"Since this story aired, Robert's had two brain bleeds and just come home from hospital.
"All of my kids used to live with me but all chose as they got older to live with their dad. While they were with me they went to school and were looked up to by everyone as good kids."
She was embarrassed and shocked at their behaviour.
"It looks like crap and I'm ashamed of my girls, they look like bloody animals and not young ladies.
"They used to play the saxaphone, they used to sing. They were great kids because of the rules and boundaries I had."
She believed their father no longer made her daughters go to school.
Rakei, her daughters, as well as herself and other extended family had all received death threats since the story ran.
Yesterday, a man blocked Rakei's driveway with his car and walked toward the house with a tomahawk asking for him. Allan said Rakei approached the man swinging a pole around "like a taiaha", a traditional Māori weapon, before the man left without incident.
It was after that incident that police moved them out of the house.
Stokes and her daughter have since been offered a new public housing home from the Department of Health and Human Services after the story aired.
A Current Affair has been approached for comment but is yet to respond.
