The distraught partner of a gang member, who was dealt a fatal “hotbox” beating after spending the gang’s money without permission, struggles to understand why his killers didn’t just talk to him about it.
“Why didn’t you come to Shark, like men with mana, and talk it out?” said Rebecca Van Der Aa, partner of Mark “the Shark” Hohua.
She was directing her question at four Tribesmen Aotearoa gang members in the High Court at Hamilton this week as they were jailed for Hohua’s death.
“Why did you choose violence? Why did you take his life?”
At a trial in July, a jury found Tribesmen president Conway Rapana and Sergeant at Arms Te Patukino Biddle guilty of Hohua’s murder.
Vice-president Heremaia Gage and patched member Ngahere Tapara were found guilty of his manslaughter.
Prospect Dean Collier was found not guilty of the charges he faced.
The trial heard a “hotbox” was when a gang delivered a beating to one of its members.
Hohua died after a series of assaults at Rapana’s Hodges Rd property in Waimana, Eastern Bay of Plenty, in June 2022.
The attack was ordered by Rapana after Hohua had made multiple purchases from an online website using the gang’s bank account.
Van Der Aa said there were no words to explain the impact of their actions.
“It’s now been three years, three months, 27 days since you took a life that was not yours to take,” she told the group at their sentencing.
“I replay that day over and over in my mind ... torturing myself, if only I had stayed home from work, maybe he would still be here?”
Hohua had a smile that lit up every room, she said.
“His laugh, loud and real, echoed through the house whenever he was with his sons and mokos.
“I will never understand why, but if I could ask one question, it would be why?”
Biddle’s counsel, Matthew Goodwin, submitted “in the strongest possible terms” that the killing was not premeditated.
“This is an internal discipline that has gone wrong,” he said.
“It was the administering of that discipline that led to the consequences that were not intended by those administering it, but Mr Biddle does accept there was reckless conduct.”
In seeking discounts, he highlighted his client’s background of hardship and deprivation, and said Biddle was always going to end up in the gang, as his father was a former president.
Nick Dutch, on behalf of Rapana, told the judge his client was not responsible for any of the violence and he’d directed two gang members to take Hohua to Whakatāne Hospital for treatment.
Rebecca Webby, for Gage, said her client was making good rehabilitative progress while on remand.
He’d gone into jail not being able to read but had just completed a certificate in small business.
Gage had uncles in a gang in which he felt a sense of camaraderie.
He’d also witnessed periods of “significant violence” in his life, which had normalised that sort of behaviour.
Caitlan Gentleman, on behalf of Tapara, pushed for a six-year start point along with discounts for youth, previous good character, as he had no other convictions, and his background.
In determining the facts, Justice David Johnstone found that after Rapana discovered Hohua’s unauthorised spending, he made a series of phone calls to Biddle and Gage.
It was agreed that a “hotbox” would take place two days later at his property.
Biddle then “took a full part in the actual beating of Hohua to death”, the judge said.
While the severity of the attack may have surprised Rapana, “he devised it, arranged it and authorised it”.
“Your decision-making led directly to Mr Hohua’s death, which is an outcome you knew well could happen.”
Justice Johnstone also delivered a few words about the practice of hotboxing, which he labelled “wrongheaded”.
“It’s unnecessary and dangerous ... for both its intended victims and bystanders.
“It pretends that in some situations that it’s alright to solve problems with physical violence.
“Young people who grow up seeing or hearing about hotboxes might be more likely to think that fighting is a way to deal with problematic behaviour.
“Maybe in time you will learn that hotboxing is what people who have no respect for each other, or themselves, or for their future generations, do.”
Biddle and Rapana were sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder charges.
Justice Johnstone then took a starting point of 13 years when setting their minimum period of imprisonment (MPI).
He allowed Biddle credit before setting his at 12 years but found there was nothing to mitigate the blameworthiness of Rapana’s offending and locked his MPI in at 13 years.
Tapara was jailed for four years and six months, after being given two years’ credit for his previous clean record, upbringing and time on electronically monitored bail.
Gage was jailed for five years, after being given a six-month discount for his upbringing and rehabilitative work.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.