Serial offender who shot at police fails to get lengthy sentence quashed

The car Joshua Kite crashed on Kamo Rd where he fired two shots at a police constable before driving away in a police patrol car. Photo/John Stone

A serial offender's claim that a lengthy jail sentence he received for shooting at three Whangārei police officers and unlawfully taking two cars was "wholly out of proportion" has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Joshua Kite was jailed by the High Court in March for 11 years and six months on a number of charges, the bulk of which originated in Whangārei in the early hours of August 26, 2017.

The charges were possession of methamphetamine for supply, using a firearm against a police officer, impersonating police, unlawfully carrying a firearm, dangerous driving, and two of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

Kite, 35, crashed the car he was driving along Kamo Rd on August 26, 2017 following a short police pursuit then fired two shots at police but missed.

He then drove away in a police patrol car, stopped two people in another vehicle near Raumanga Valley Rd and ordered them to get out before driving off in their car.

He then ditched that car in Maungaturoto and was later sighted in Kaiwaka. Maungaturoto was put into lockdown and cordons placed after the vehicle was found abandoned on Bickerstaffe Rd. The cordons were later removed after Kite was spotted in
Kaiwaka.

He was arrested on September 1 last year after search warrants were carried out in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa.

In the Court of Appeal, the grounds of appeal were his sentence was manifestly excessive and that the judge should have imposed concurrent sentences. But the court said cumulative sentences were generally appropriate if the offences were different in kind.

The meth offending was unrelated to the other offences, the court said.

While sentencing Kite, Justice Anne Hinton adopted a starting point of eight years for firing at police and uplifted it by two years for the remainder of the Whangārei offending.

Additional uplifts were given of 12 months for aggravating features, nine months for previous convictions, and three months to reflect the fact the offending was committed while he was on parole release conditions.

However, the judge gave a discount of 14 months for time spent in custody, a further six months for genuine remorse, and 20 per cent for early guilty plea.

"We have not been persuaded that the approach taken by the judge which led to the overall sentence of 11 and a half years resulted in a sentence wholly out of proportion to the gravity of the overall offending," the Court of Appeal judges ruled.