A Rebels New Zealand gang patch. Photo / File
A traumatised man shot and killed an unarmed stranger who turned up at his property, wrongly assuming the man had come to “finish him off”.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, thought he was in for another beating, after he suffered a violent gang-related attack that morning during which he had been impaled through his shoulder with a steel rod.
So, when he saw Jamin Roemaata Harrison on his CCTV, standing at the gate at his rural property near Tauranga, the 55-year-old came out of his house with a shotgun and fired down a treeline, hitting the 30-year-old in the chest and abdomen.
Harrison died at the scene.
The man was found guilty of manslaughter after a trial earlier this year, which followed an earlier trial that resulted in a hung jury.
Today, at the High Court at Rotorua, he was sentenced to three years and nine months’ imprisonment by Justice Tracey Walker.
Harrison’s family members, who attended the sentencing, spoke of him as a loving father to his two children, and a man who had a “heart of gold”.
They spoke of his work ethic, his commitment to family, and their regret that he would never see his young children grow up and have families of their own.
They said Harrison’s siblings have been traumatised by the event, and visualise his passing, wondering what his final moments were like.
Justice Walker said the man had been suffering from a form of PTSD when Harrison arrived at his house.
Both he and his female partner had suffered a vicious attack by Rebels gang members earlier that day.
Justice Walker addressed the man directly saying telling him it was “only by chance you were not killed that morning”.
After the violent assault, police had attended but she said he had refused offers of help, thinking police involvement would “make matters worse”.
“You made statements to the police along the lines of, ‘you would be sorting it yourself through your own channels’”.
The judge said this didn’t mean he’d necessarily intended “vigilante action”, but it seemed he’d had no confidence in the police’s ability to protect him at his semi-rural property.
When the man and his partner saw Harrison on the CCTV camera, they recognised him as someone associated with the Rebels leader who they knew had orchestrated the attack on them earlier that day.
The judge said Harrison had been a “pawn of the individual behind the scenes”, and there was no evidence to suggest Harrison had known about the earlier assault.
The man’s “terrified” partner had either been mistaken, or had misspoken, when she told him she could see Harrison had a gun.
He responded by going outside and turning on floodlights before he fired down the tree line towards Harrison, who was about 23m away.
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His defence at trial was that he’d fired the “warning shot” in self-defence, believing the gang members were back to “finish [him] off”.
When the man and his partner realised someone had been shot, they ran and called an ambulance and followed instructions for CPR.
They then ran off when they saw a car turn into their driveway, believing that more gang members may have arrived, but went to a neighbour’s house to wait for police to arrive.
The judge began with a starting point of six years and three months’ imprisonment, which she said took into account the jury’s conclusion that he’d exercised “excessive self-defence” when he mistakenly believed he was under attack.
Discounts were then given for mitigating factors which included the man’s offer of a guilty plea for manslaughter, but which the Crown chose not to accept, proceeding to two murder trials instead.
The judge said the offer of the guilty plea for manslaughter was “vindicated” by the jury, and he was entitled to a 15% deduction.
She said the most important mitigating factor was the “acute stress disorder” that resulted from the traumatic events on the morning of the offending.
That had the “single most causative impact” on the offending, Justice Walker said.
His instinctual reaction had a “disordering effect” - his judgement and actions had been impaired by his PTSD.
He had prospects of rehabilitation but only if he “steers clear of the kind of people who in the background to this offending, orchestrated your assault”.
Considering these factors he was given a deduction of 20%.
He was also given a further 5% deduction for remorse, with several reports provided to the court indicating the man’s feelings about the incident.
“He has a family, he’s someone’s son, and I did that,” the man said.
He told a report writer he had never meant to kill anyone, he’d just wanted the perceived threat to go away.
He’d offered to take part in restorative justice if that would help Harrison’s family.
The judge reached an end sentence of three years, nine months’ imprisonment.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.