Tana-Tui Samuels has been jailed for raping a 15-year-old girl who was sleeping at his West Auckland home after consuming alcohol and cannabis at a birthday party for his teenage daughter.
Warning: This story is about sexual offending.
The partner of a woman who died with her baby son days after giving birth has been jailed for more than six years for raping an intoxicated teenager at a birthday party for one of his older children.
Emerald Tai, 27, and her newborn son died at their West Auckland home in March 2020, hours after leaving Auckland City Hospital against medical advice.
Both had sepsis, and the coroner said it could not be determined whether the baby died solely from infection or also from suffocation while sleeping under his mother.
The case prompted investigations by Health New Zealand (formerly Auckland District Health Board) and the Health and Disability Commission (HDC) into Emerald’s care, including whether sepsis warning signs were missed and discharge protocols followed.
The Herald can now reveal that in October last year, Emerald’s partner, Tana-Tui Ngatote Samuels, was jailed for child sex offending.
The Court of Appeal has recently dismissed his attempt to have his conviction quashed.
The victim was 15. She cannot be identified, but court documents state she had known Samuels and Emerald all her life.
In April 2022, the teenager went to Samuels’ home to celebrate his daughter turning 14.
“There was alcohol and cannabis being consumed by people at the party. The victim had a considerable amount to drink and also smoked some of the cannabis,” said Judge Terence Singh.
“She began to feel sick as a result of consuming alcohol and decided to go upstairs to bed. She said she was feeling tipsy and was ‘falling everywhere’.”
The teen was helped upstairs by her best friend.
Judge Singh said Samuels went to the room sometime later, partly removed the teen’s clothing, touched her inappropriately and raped her.
“She said this lasted approximately 15 minutes. Afterwards, you put your clothes back on and walked out. The victim remained in the room for the night.
“The following day, she had a shower and you told her that if she told anyone what happened, you would give her a hiding.”
The teenager told her mother the next day. She reported it to the police in August 2022, and Samuels was charged with sexual violation and rape.
He denied the offending but was found guilty by a jury after a trial in the Waitākere District Court.
Judge Singh acknowledged there were “two different accounts” presented at trial, but ultimately the jury accepted the Crown case.
“In relation to vulnerability of the victim… she was younger than you, intoxicated, asleep in bed when the offending occurred, and she was not in a position to effectively defend herself.
“As she explained in her (police) statement, she couldn’t do anything because she had been drinking and smoking.”
The judge said the victim was even more vulnerable as she was “somewhat immature and unsophisticated” for her age.
He said Samuels had breached her trust.
“You were 38 years old at the time of the offending and she was in the child to teenager bracket,” he said.
“She had spent considerable time at your house… She would have expected to be safe staying the night at your house.”
The victim provided an impact statement for the court.
“Since this has happened, I experience flashbacks and often wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares of what was done to me,” she said.
“I’ve struggled with the long wait for this trial to happen. I don’t like being touched by anybody or anyone coming too close to me.”
Judge Singh said the teenager struggled to show affection and had “turned to drugs and alcohol to get through it”.
“She says she has distanced herself from people she used to hang out with, and her family has noticed a change in her. She used to have a positive outlook, but this has been mostly negative now,” he said.
“She struggled with relationships with her family and used to always attend church and enjoyed going every Sunday with her mum, but this has stopped too. She struggled to be able to be around others and socialise.
“She struggles with the damage you have done to her family… She is no longer the person she used to be.”
The Crown sought a sentence of 7.5 years in prison.
Samuels’ lawyer suggested seven years, with discounts for his remorse, “cultural factors”, rehabilitation Samuels had done and “loss of work and prospects”.
Judge Singh said he could not give any discount for remorse because Samuels continued to “hold the view that the offending did not occur”.
He said reports provided to him outlined “matters of domestic violence within the family house” when Samuels was young.
“I take into account the availability of alcohol and illegal substances to you early on; in fact, you disclosed that you used cannabis at the age of eight,” he said.
“I also take into account that there was an unhappy environment when you were growing up, a lack of food and care for you, and a disconnection from your marae.
“Then what followed is also traumatic in the sense of you losing your partner, the mother of your six children, as well as your seventh child. That must have been heartbreaking for you.”
Judge Singh said Samuels spoke in “glowing terms” of his commitment to raising his children, who currently live with another family.
“That is your life and you want the best for them,” he said.
“I also take into account you miss them dearly and that you recognise this is a difficult period of your life being without them and them without you.
“You also have a new baby, which you will lose some time with, and the ability to do some of those things you were able to do with your six children. I appreciate that is going to be difficult.”
Judge Singh said there was no “joining” between the matters raised in the report and Samuels’ offending - however, he accepted there had been challenges, trauma and some systemic deprivation in his life.
“You were a child and should not have had to look for things like where the next meal was going to come from. That should have been provided to you.”
Judge Singh set a starting point of 7.5 years’ imprisonment.
He gave Samuels a 5% discount to reflect his childhood issues, another 5% for the “loss of connection” with his children and 5% for “rehabilitation”.
“For those things such as alcohol and cannabis as well as anger and frustrations, you have taken the time while being in custody to try and uplift yourself and uplift the people around you.
“I can see you have been a positive influence on people in prison in trying to help them in any way that you can,” the judge said.
He also cancelled more than $9600 in fines Samuels had racked up.
“It would be preferable when you came out that you did not come out to significant amount of debt because the strong likelihood is you will take back care of your children based on what I know of you,” he said.
Samuels’ final sentence was six years and four months in prison, and he was added to the Child Sex Offender Register.
He appealed his conviction, saying there had been a miscarriage of justice resulting from the trial judge’s actions.
He told the Court of Appeal that Judge Singh “should have declared a mistrial” when a Crown witness gave “prejudicial evidence “ during cross-examination.
That evidence was an allegation that Samuels had been seen assaulting Emerald when she was pregnant with her last baby.
The witness said “he was giving her a hiding”.
“I told him I would have him arrested if he hit (Emerald) again in front of me.
“I don’t wanna see (Emerald) getting hit, beaten, while she’s pregnant,” the witness said in court.
Samuels’ lawyer stopped the cross-examination at that point and made an application to have a mistrial declared.
Judge Singh refused, determining that “whilst the evidence in question was prejudicial, its potential adverse impact could be addressed through directions”.
Soon after, he gave the jury “a strong and clear direction to disregard” the evidence. He repeated that direction before the jury was sent to deliberate.
Samuels told the Court of Appeal that the steps taken by Judge Singh were “inadequate” and that “the failure to declare a mistrial has resulted in a miscarriage of justice”.
After considering Samuels’ submissions, Justices David Collins, Pheroze Jagose and Thomas Gault dismissed the appeal.
“We are satisfied that no miscarriage of justice arose through the way in which Judge Singh gave clear and unequivocal directions to the jury to disregard the prejudicial and inadmissible evidence given by (the witness),” said Justice Collins in the court’s decision provided to the Herald.
“The evidence in question was fleeting and came in during the course of a multi-day trial in which no other evidence was adduced about Mr Samuels’ acting violently or about his previous convictions for violence.
“The focus of the trial was upon Mr Samuels’ sexual offending, not on other violence offending. The jury would have appreciated and understood the Judge’s clear instructions that the evidence given by [the witness] concerning her having witnessed Mr Samuels hitting [Emerald] was irrelevant.”
Justice Collins addressed Samuels’ submission that “the jury were incapable of following the directions” given by Judge Singh.
He said there was no evidence to suggest the jury disregarded or ignored the directions.
“The appeal is dismissed,” he ruled.
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 19 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz