Mongrel Mob 'kingpin' jailed for a decade

Former mob boss Alexander Tamati enlisted two younger gang members to kidnap a woman who owed him an $800 methamphetamine debt. Photo/File.

A former Mongrel Mob president found guilty of kidnapping and sexually violating a teenager who owed him a drug debt has been sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, with a minimum non-parole period of five years.

Alexander Tamati, previously the president of the gang's Aotearoa chapter, stood trial in the Napier District Court last year for enlisting two younger gang members to kidnap the 19-year-old who owed him a $800 methamphetamine debt and bring her to him to "work it off".

It took a jury two hours to find 60-year-old guilty of four counts of unlawful sexual connection, two each of kidnapping and aggravated assault and one each of assault on a female, assault with a blunt instrument and threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm.

At sentencing Judge Tony Adeane described the offending as "acts of bullying gangsterim of the most aggravated kind".

The court heard Tamati had a criminal history spanning four decades that involved rape and drug trafficking.

In his submissions Crown prosecutor Steve Manning said the defendant had a sense of entitlement and control over his victim, adding sexual violence was used for punishment and sexual gratification.

An important feature in the case was the "particularly brave" complainant who came forward in spite of the gang backdrop, he said.

During the November trial the court heard the young woman was kidnapped by Neil Angus Benson and Hagen Taraiwa Wiremu Henare, jailed for two years three months and two years six months respectively in December, who delivered her to Tamati with the message "parcel delivered".

In the early hours of November 26, 2016, she was held against her will in a sitting room where Tamati subjected her to threats, assaults and sexual violation.

Both Benson and Henare waited outside the room while the offending occurred and stopped the complainant from leaving when Tamati fell asleep.

At the start of the trial the defendant pleaded guilty to charges of supplying methamphetamine and possessing utensils for the Class A drug.

This morning defence lawyer Russell Fairbrother submitted a starting point of ten years' imprisonment, as did the Crown, and said his client now "unreservedly" expressed his remorse.

Mr Manning said the defendant's remorse had only surfaced after a fully defended trial and submitted a non-parole period was justified in such a case to hold the defendant accountable for the harm he caused to the complainant and the protection of the community.

The court heard Tamati had recently accepted his culpability, telling a cultural report writer "I'm sorry I did it, I actually don't know why I did it."

Judge Tony Adeane said Tamati's criminal history reflected a lifetime commitment to gang culture and "so called presidency of the Napier Mongrel Mob".

"To expect you to reform at this age would be a very big ask indeed."

Tamati was one of 16 gangsters sent to jail in 2012 after a bloody leadership coup in Wairoa two years earlier where two Mongrel Mob members were shot in a gunfight between two factions at the gang pad.

Prior that he had been jailed for six and a half years for a series of drug offences involving the purchase and manufacturing of methamphetamine, cannabis and morphine sulphate.

Today Judge Adeane sentenced Tamati to ten years' imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of five years.