A woman was facing jail time because she wasn't completing her community work, but "turned her life around" with the help of Tauranga's Te Ao Mārama team.
When a woman appeared in court for shoplifting and spraying beer at police, a judge said he might have no choice but to send her to prison.
Jail time wasn’t on the cards because her offending was serious enough to warrant imprisonment, but because along with those charges, she had been ordered to do 280 hours of community work two and a half years ago – but completed only 21 hours.
Judge Paul Geoghegan questioned the woman about why, after such a long time, she had barely been able to scratch the surface.
Josephine*, who is in her 20s, broke down in the Tauranga District Court dock as her lawyer, Hine-Joy Weiland, explained some of her challenges – including a lack of transport, limited family support and her need for a hearing aid.
Judge Geoghegan asked why she couldn’t get a lift from a family member to community work.
Weiland explained that Josephine’s family, while giving her and her young son a roof over their heads, offered little more in the way of support.
So, Judge Geoghegan referred Josephine to a relatively recent addition in the Tauranga District Court – the Te Ao Mārama team – and said he would adjourn her sentencing.
He concluded by warning her if she didn’t “help herself” and find a way to do her community work, he would have no choice but to send her to prison.
When she came back to court the next month, things had changed.
“Until I got the report from the Te Ao Mārama team, I was going to send you to prison,” Judge Geoghegan told her.
After the Te Ao Mārama referral in early July, Josephine had done a further 145 hours, bringing her total to 166 hours completed.
She had 116 hours left to complete, so Judge Geoghegan adjourned the sentencing for a final time, and in late November, she had all 280 community work hours completed.
This time, it was Judge Melinda Mason who saw her in court.
She was there for sentencing on charges that stemmed from offending in late 2024 and early 2025.
In the first incident, Josephine had yelled at police who were there to arrest her partner after reports of family harm. She had sprayed them with beer and thrown cannabis bong water over them, leading to a charge of assaulting police.
Then in March 2025, Josephine, along with a co-defendant, stole from Woolworths in Tauranga’s Fraser Cove.
Her co-defendant concealed “various meat items” in a jacket, while Josephine took bottles of alcohol.
Police sought reparation of $100 for Josephine’s share of the stolen items.
Weiland reminded the judge there had been an earlier indication that, should Josephine complete her community work, the likely outcome for the new charges would be a sentence of supervision.
“She has made a tremendous improvement since she’s begun the court process and, with the support of Te Ao Mārama, has been able to complete what she was unable to prior to their support,” Weiland said.
“She’s been given the social supports that were needed for her to make positive movements forward in her life.”
Judge Mason agreed and said she and Judge Geoghegan wanted to commend Josephine on her efforts to engage with Te Ao Mārama and complete her community work.
“You’ve made such an immense amount of progress,” Judge Mason said.
“... had you not done this work, there would have been a chance that you would have gone to prison ... so you should be really proud of yourself, that you’ve turned your life around.”
Josephine was sentenced to six months’ supervision on the shoplifting and assaulting police charges.
On charges of breach of community work, she was convicted and discharged.
Josephine agreed NZME could be provided with her Te Ao Mārama reports, provided she wasn’t identified.
The reports include personal information not discussed in open court.
Team member Michael Waru met with Josephine to discuss her personal circumstances and the difficulties she had in completing community work.
Josephine lives in multi-generational, crowded housing where she and her young son sleep in the lounge.
She became a mother when she was a teen and her early years were marked by physical abuse and instability.
She has hearing loss because of untreated ear infections she suffered as a child.
One of the major barriers to her completing her community work was her lack of transport to an approved community work provider.
All her family members have jobs of their own and weren’t able to drop her off and pick her up.
Waru said while speaking with Josephine, he discovered she had an elderly relative who worked at a local marae.
Waru knew that particular marae had horticulture and food preparation services, and made inquiries with the Probation Service to see if it would be an appropriate community work provider.
Probation agreed and the marae is now on its list, meaning Josephine could get a ride there each day with her relative.
With her community work hours complete, she has been offered a part-time job there.
Referrals were made to get hearing aids and she has begun making a plan for independent housing in the future, once she has more stability and her son is a bit older.
She was assisted in finding an after-school programme for her son.
She has also been referred to alcohol and drug counselling.
Waru’s report says the woman has “demonstrated significant growth, resilience, and determination”.
“Her completion of all community work hours, securing part-time employment, progressing with hearing aid funding, and making informed decisions regarding housing reflect her commitment to long-term stability,” the report says.
When she appeared in court for the final time, she was smiling, not crying, as she was commended for her efforts.
Waru, team leader Joy Ngatoko and service manager Roy Nathan all have energy and enthusiasm for the mahi their team do in the criminal court in Tauranga.
They say “rewarding” is the word that best describes the Te Ao Mārama approach, particularly in light of an outcome like Josephine’s.
Seven people are employed by the service and five spend their days as assessors and in-court navigators, sitting in Tauranga’s criminal courts where they get referrals from judges and lawyers.
Although they have a cap of 10 a week, they received 17 referrals in the week before Josephine’s hearing.
Since they started in the Tauranga District Court in March 2025, and as of early December 2025, they had received 290 referrals and had 277 people enrolled.
They meet with each person for 45 minutes to an hour, at the Te Ao Mārama offices opposite the court, over a cup of tea and a biscuit.
“That’s meeting a need right away when they’re hungry,” Waru says.
They first focus on what’s stopping the person meeting their legal obligations and looking at immediate needs that might relate to hardship and poverty.
They assess if the person is experiencing a crisis, and the “survival” needs are looked at – often housing and food
Then the team can look at things like counselling or therapy for the client, and some of their long-term aspirations to give them hope for a better future.
The idea is to try to address the underlying causes of reoffending.
Some of the assistance is provided through Ngāti Ranginui iwi itself, which runs Te Ao Mārama in Tauranga and has 107 staff, and six departments from education services to social and community development, health services and wellbeing services.
They also rely on community organisations and refer some clients to Whānau Ora.
Waru said a particularly memorable referral involved an immigrant living in a township near Tauranga. A local church was approached to provide a one-off food package to the man and his family, to meet a need “right there and then”.
However, unbeknownst to Waru, the church continued its support.
“The church has been visiting the family every week, dropping off food support and sitting down ... [the client’s mum] doesn’t speak a word of English ... She had been going through some mental health things and they would sit down and have a chat, a cup of tea, coffee, and he would be the interpreter for them ... she just needed a community.”
That remains one of the biggest needs, beyond practical support, that the Te Ao Mārama team regularly identify: community. Often, their clients are turning up to court with no whānau or friends to support them.
“[Our clients] don’t know where to turn, don’t know where to go, but if they had community, then they would have the pull of other supports,” the team say.
“They need people, they need someone who’s going to listen, someone to talk to.”
Tauranga’s Te Ao Mārama programme is run by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ranginui iwi and aims to back up the criminal justice system by providing wrap-around supports in its Tauihu service.
Te Ao Mārama exists in eight district courts in New Zealand and was introduced in Tauranga as a trial programme in March 2025.
It was formally adopted in October, with a Ministry of Justice statement saying “it provides cultural and holistic support and provides timely and meaningful information to judicial officers”.
A ceremony was held at Huria Marae in Tauranga to formally acknowledge the full implementation after completing testing, and acknowledged the signing of an ongoing relationship agreement between Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ranginui iwi and the Ministry of Justice.
The Office of the Chief District Court Judge said in a statement Te Ao Mārama was an initiative to improve the quality of justice delivered in the 59 district courts.
Eight courts – Kaitāia, Kaikohe, Whangārei, Hamilton (including Huntly), Tauranga, Gisborne, Napier and Hastings – received extra Ministry of Justice resourcing to introduce Te Ao Mārama.
“Extra resourcing for further locations will depend on the outcome of an independent evaluation being conducted across the existing locations,” the statement said.
“But many of the Te Ao Mārama best practices can be implemented without extra resourcing and will continue to be rolled out around the country.”
Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu has been pleased with Te Ao Mārama’s progress in not only the eight courts receiving extra resourcing, but elsewhere in the country, saying: “We still have a long way to go, but people and communities are already starting to see the benefits of this work.”
*Not the woman’s real name.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.