“This woman thought that she was going to be killed, and she had good reason for thinking that,” he said.
Te Pou, 28, lived near the woman in Havelock North and drove to her house during the day on June 12 last year, after hearing that she had recently sold a car for $1000.
He mistakenly believed this meant she would have cash in the house.
Te Pou was wearing gloves, dark glasses and a hat, and carrying a boning knife, when he appeared at the woman’s open door.
He demanded money from the woman who had left her lounge to confront him.
“I don’t have any money. I’m broke,” she said.
The woman’s son and her father were also in the house.
The father came out of another room and, with the woman, managed to force Te Pou out of the door, picking up a printer and throwing it at him.
As they struggled, Te Pou held the knife towards the woman’s throat and it cut her chin as she tried to deflect it.
They managed to shut Te Pou out, but he smashed the door around the lock.
The woman and her father struggled to hold it shut.
But the woman followed Te Pou outside as he went to leave the property, and took a photograph of his car and number plate.
“Give me the phone. Don’t take my f...... picture,” he told her.
The woman’s father picked up a pot plant and threw it at Te Pou, chasing him off.
He left the property empty-handed and later removed the number plates from the vehicle filmed by the victims.
Te Pou, who did not know the woman beforehand, was charged with aggravated burglary, which he admitted.
At sentencing, defence counsel Sheila Cameron said there were fewer than three minutes between Te Pou arriving and leaving.
She said her client had been combating mental illness for many years.
“On the day he was very unwell ... he wasn’t quite in his right mind.”
However, after being remanded in custody and receiving treatment, Te Pou has begun to get better, and his sense of responsibility for what he had done has grown.
“He is sorry. He is now taking responsibility,” Cameron said.
Te Pou had written a letter of remorse, the court heard.
Manning agreed that Te Pou had mental health issues, but said two psychologists’ reports said these had played no part in his offending.
Judge Richard Earwaker handed down a prison sentence of four years and two months.
He remitted Te Pou’s $13,821 in fines and added two months in prison, to be served cumulatively.
The fines were mainly for driving offences, with some dating back to 2013.
Te Pou was also ordered to pay $440 in reparation to his victims on his eventual release from prison.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
