The teens would use the dating app Grindr to target their victims. Photo / 123RF
A gay man who was lured to a park through a dating app and then violently attacked by teenagers feels insulted that the “most culpable” of the group has fought for a lesser sentence.
Kelly Hopkins had been chatting to someone he thought was another man on the dating app Grindr in April 2023 and agreed to meet them at a park in Avonhead, Christchurch, late at night.
But instead of the man he’d anticipated meeting, it was a group of teenagers who came at him in the dark, kicking and punching him as he lay on the ground, before hitting him in the head with a rock.
Six weeks later, he was called by the police and asked to identify footage of the incident, which, to Hopkins’ horror, had also been filmed.
He learned there were nine other similar incidents where the group targeted gay and bisexual men through Grindr.
Five of those teens were charged and then sentenced by the same Youth Court judge in February last year.
A sixth teen, whom police deemed the “most culpable” of the group, had a different sentencing judge.
He had already completed community service and was discharged by that judge with no further penalty.
The Police appealed that sentence to the High Court on the basis that it was inadequate.
While the High Court agreed and overturned the discharge, meaning a notation was added to his Ministry of Justice record about the criminal offending, the youth then sought leave to appeal that ruling to the Court of Appeal.
In a recently released judgment, for which NZME was granted permission from the court to report, the Court of Appeal has declined the youth’s request for leave to appeal, meaning the High Court’s decision will remain in force.
Hopkins told NZME it was insulting that the youth had tried to appeal what was already, in his opinion, a light sentence.
“If I were his parents, I’d want him to have the full culpability,” he said.
During the attack on Hopkins, his glasses were broken and he suffered abrasions on his elbows and knees, bruised ribs and a gash on his head.
He told NZME after the youths were sentenced that the sound of people walking behind him still freaked him out.
Hopkins said he felt vindicated that the police had pushed for parity in the sentences, and that they’d advocated for some of the teens to have their charges heard in the District Court.
“It feels to me the victims got lost in all of this,” he said.
According to the summary of facts, the sixth youth was 15 at the time of the offending.
The group would message their intended victims on Grindr, engage in sexualised conversation and exchange photographs before arranging to meet in a public place.
Multiple youths would then outnumber the victim and assault them. The violence included punching, kicking and stomping, sometimes to the victim’s head, causing some to lose consciousness.
Some of those victims suffered fractures, and others required surgeries, and some of the attacks were filmed and shared on social media.
No single member of the group participated in all 10 assaults, but the teen in this case participated in eight of them.
The court found that one of the attacks, which occurred on April 15, 2023, was the most serious of the 10, and saw the victim chased, punched, kicked and stomped on the head, causing him to lose consciousness while being taunted and verbally abused. This attack was recorded and shared on social media.
Eventually, the six youths, aged between 14 and 16, were identified and charged with multiple serious offences, including injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, aggravated robbery and possession of objectionable material.
The sixth youth admitted 11 charges: three of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, three of aggravated robbery, three of assault with intent to rob, a charge of intentional damage, and a charge of possession of an objectionable publication
In February last year, a Youth Court judge sentenced five of the offenders, declining a bid from police to transfer two of them to the District Court, on the basis that the likely outcome would be substantially more serious in that court, as they could have been given sentences of imprisonment.
Those two were involved in eight of the 10 attacks and received “group 4 responses” under the Oranga Tamariki Act, resulting in sentences of six months of supervision and 150 hours of community work.
Three of the teens who were involved in fewer of the assaults had sentences imposing informal plans involving community work and reparation. They were also discharged, meaning they won’t have a notation on their court records.
The sixth youth was sentenced by a different judge, and despite police maintaining he was the most culpable of the group as he’d been involved in eight attacks, as well as an unrelated attack on a person at a bus stop, and seeking that he received the same punishment as the first two youths, the judge didn’t agree.
That judge noted that he had parental support in a well-resourced home, was not involved in the first assault and was a follower rather than a leader. She also noted the steps he’d taken since his offending, including community work and a psychological assessment, and discharged him, ordering no other penalty.
On appeal by the police to the High Court of that sentence, Justice Lisa Preston found the Youth Court judge had made an error in not making the sixth youth’s sentence equal to his two peers.
Justice Preston found that the sixth youth was no less culpable, and it was a “grossly and unjustifiably disparate outcome for [the teen] not to receive the same outcome…”
That judgment quashed the Youth Court’s order to discharge the sixth youth, and instead imposed an order that a notation remain on the youth’s court records.
The youth’s lawyer, Kerry Cook, in seeking leave to appeal Justice Preston’s decision, said it would be a miscarriage of justice if his client wasn’t allowed to appeal, and it was his only opportunity to do so.
Cook said the Youth Court was required to take into account a youth’s best interests and be merciful where possible.
The Court of Appeal found that Justice Preston was right to identify a parity issue between the sentence the sixth youth received and that of his peers for “essentially the same offending”.
“… this was serious offending involving premeditated actions and significant violence, taking place over a series of events involving different victims.
“The Youth Court recognised it was the kind of offending that could easily have been transferred to the District Court, where a sentence of imprisonment may well have been considered.”
The panel of judges at the Court of Appeal acknowledged that a notation on the youth’s record would likely have some negative implications for him, but they were not disproportionate given the serious nature of his offending and the effect on his victims.
The court declined the youth’s bid for leave to appeal the High Court judgment.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.