Chea Joss Cameron stayed at Kawai PuraPura in Albany. The centre is on the site of the former Centrepoint commune north of Auckland. Photo / Sarah Ivey
When Chea Joss Cameron went to Auckland’s Kawai Purapura retreat, she’d hoped for a rest and a reset, following some health challenges.
Instead, her stay was marred by fear, resulting in a criminal case and a Tenancy Tribunal claim, following a “calculated campaign” of intimidation she experienced there.
The North Shore property was formerly home to the infamous Centrepoint commune, before it was shut down in 2000.
The Prema Charitable Trust purchased the property in 2008, and it was operated as Kawai Purapura, before being sold in mid-2024. In early 2025, the Herald reported there had been a fire at the site.
According to a Tenancy Tribunal decision, Cameron claimed the landlord, the trust, breached the Residential Tenancies Act by allowing a fellow tenant to breach her quiet enjoyment of the premises.
That tenant, Karl Keller, was accused of sending a threatening message, throwing things around outside, constantly running a tap that was attached to the outside of Cameron’s cabin, playing loud music, and being near her cabin when he had no reason to be.
Keller told NZME his actions have been misinterpreted, that he never meant her any harm, and maintains his innocence, despite being convicted of intimidating Cameron.
Cameron told the tribunal the landlord should have enforced the “House Rules” and evicted Keller.
She also claimed the landlord was liable for an earlier burglary at her cabin, as she said the premises were represented as “safe” but “people with criminal records” were allowed to stay there.
The decision notes there could have been as many as 100 people staying at the retreat at one time.
Cameron initially sought $130,796 in compensation and exemplary damages – a significant amount of this being “lost wages”.
She reduced it to $100,000, however, so it would fall within the jurisdiction of the tribunal; $65,000 of that was attributed to lost wages.
Cameron told NZME she wanted to stay at Kawai Purapura as, while at a retreat in Bali, she had become unwell and hadn’t had “the opportunity to have the retreat [she] wanted”.
“I was hoping to get ... exactly what it said on the website, a peaceful place ... the opportunity of doing yoga, bush walks, things like that,” she said.
However, in the weeks after arriving, she was admitted to hospital for a “serious health emergency”.
While in hospital, Cameron asked Keller to lock her cabin, but this didn’t happen.
However, Keller called to say her cabin had been burgled and the police had been called.
The details of the burglary aren’t included in the decision, but after returning from hospital, Keller sent Cameron a message.
Cameron said it read: “f***king thieving c**t”, and next time he’d “leave [her] on her deck to die”.
It’s understood this referred to an unreturned jumper Keller may have given her when she went to hospital.
After the text, which Keller did not deny sending, Cameron notified Kawai Purapura management, explaining she was scared.
John, a manager whose surname is unknown, emailed Keller, telling him there had been a complaint about his behaviour and “the situation was being reviewed”.
However, despite emails back and forth, no formal warning was given.
Cameron told Jeanne Waldron, the trust’s liaison manager, and later the tribunal, that Keller’s behaviour had continued.
He would throw things around her area, stop unnecessarily near her cabin, run an outside tap attached to her cabin, and rev his car.
She said she told Waldron she was scared and was sleeping with her light on.
Early on, Cameron had Keller trespassed by police, but the response from Waldron was to offer Keller sympathy.
Cameron was issued with an “anti-social behaviour” notice because she was “further aggravating tensions within the community”. The notice said the tap by her cabin was “available for others to use”.
By the end of November, Cameron told Waldron she would be moving out.
She told NZME it took her some time to be able to leave, as her identification was stolen in the burglary.
The decision said Keller “continued to harass her by staring at her, playing music very loud, running around in front of her cabin when he did not have a reason to be there, [and] welding outside of her cabin”.
In May 2025, Keller was convicted in the District Court on a charge of intimidation.
Judge Anna Fitzgibbon said, in her sentencing notes, that Keller went to Cameron’s cabin because her outside light was bothering him.
While Cameron turned it off when asked, Keller was already annoyed, and “deliberately acted in a way that he knew was likely to cause Ms Cameron reasonably to be frightened or intimidated”.
Police were called one night, and when they arrived, they said they found the tap running full force, with the ground wet and a light smashed and lying next to Cameron’s cabin.
Tribunal adjudicator Kate Henry said it was clear to her that Keller interfered with Cameron’s “reasonable peace, comfort, and privacy” at the premises, from the time of the burglary on October 7, 2023, until she left on December 23.
“It was a calculated campaign of conduct that’s only purpose could possibly be to intimidate and frighten the tenant.”
The adjudicator acknowledged that in boarding houses, preventing breaches to quiet enjoyment could be “challenging”, especially where the living arrangements attracted “eccentric tenants”.
However, had a “reasonable inquiry” into Cameron’s complaints taken place, the trust would have concluded in October that Keller was acting “in breach of the House Rules and was causing a serious disruption to the tenant”, and his tenancy could have been terminated.
“At the very least, Mr Keller should have been issued with a formal warning in October 2023 stating that if the harassment continued, his tenancy could be terminated immediately.”
Henry said that “to add insult to injury, the landlord victimised the tenant for making a complaint” in issuing the anti-social behaviour notice.
Cameron was awarded a 65% rent reduction for her loss of amenity, being $2503.15, and $3000 in compensation for the landlord having permitted harassment.
She was also awarded $500 in exemplary damages for an unsafe deck attached to her cabin.
Cameron was not given any of her claimed compensation for lost wages as Henry said there were other issues Cameron had, referred to in supporting documents from health professionals, which may have contributed to her inability to work. These included PTSD from the burglary, but not specifically the harassment by Keller.
Henry also did not find the trust liable for the burglary.
Cameron claimed she was told the premises were safe and said tenants should have been screened for criminal records.
However, Henry said, “the fact that a burglary has occurred at the premises in the past does not mean a premises is unsafe. I take judicial notice that there are very few areas in New Zealand that have not been subjected to burglaries or other criminal activity.”
“I do not accept that because the premises was a ‘retreat’ it was subject to a higher standard of care towards its tenants than other boarding houses. I also do not consider the landlord was under an obligation to screen tenants for a criminal record.”
Nor did Henry find that just because there was no “security officer” employed, the premises were “unsafe”.
Cameron said the process, both in the Tenancy Tribunal and the District Court, left her “very worn down” and she was “disgusted by the outcome of it all”.
She questions why there were people she understands had criminal records living at the retreat, without proper oversight or security measures in place.
“If I had known it was being utilised in that way, I never would have gone there because ... without sounding awful, I have no experience of dealing with people with that kind of background, and I would not be seeking out a retreat for that reason.”
She felt there should be greater accountability for those who run “retreats” because what she had experienced felt to her like the “wild west”.
She said people should “make sure that you know what you’re walking into” when attending retreats.
The Prema Charitable Trust and trustee Jenny Cottingham were approached for comment, but never responded to messages. Nor did manager Jeanne Waldron.
Karl Keller, however, told NZME he denies intimidating or harassing Cameron, despite the District Court conviction, and says his actions were misinterpreted.
He recalls Kawai Purapura as a “f***ing cool place”, where people were given a “second chance”.
He had gone there for the community, and to get away from bad influences.
“We were all there to heal and be happy and nice and caring for each other”.
Keller accepted he had behaved somewhat erratically, but felt let down by the justice system, which he thought had prejudged the situation.
He said his behaviour was due to his own mental health, and he had been “going through some stuff”, but it had nothing to do with Cameron.
“So, yeah ... I was banging and crashing around in my room,” he said, but claimed it all happened in his own space.
He said he had been using the outside tap to “fill a fish tank”.
Keller further said his cabin was very close to Cameron’s, given they were neighbours, and just because she could hear it all, didn’t mean it was directed at her, or was an attempt to intimidate her.
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.