Editorial: Hawea Vercoe's death and his killer's jail time

When I was in 7th form at Rotorua Boys' High School Hawea Vercoe was Head Boy.

We'd come through schooling together since Rotorua Intermediate.

After high school we all went our separate ways, but I often saw Hawea around Rotorua across the years.

He became a columnist for this newspaper, and even made headlines, standing for office, calling for bilingual road signs and putting a Maori 'Kura' sign on a school bus, among other things.

But his biggest headline was also his most tragic.

In a line dominating the front page on Monday, November 23, 2009, it simply read: 'Hawea Vercoe killed'.

A man had attacked him in the street early on the Sunday morning, punching and kicking him in the head.

A community mourned. Our old schoolmates, scattered around the globe, expressed their disbelief on Facebook.

Hawea's own Facebook page is still active, with poignant messages from loved ones posted on his birthday and last year on the anniversary of his death.

Isaiah Johnson Richard Tai was originally sentenced to two years 10 months' prison after admitting a charge of manslaughter.

It was unbelievable.

Hawea's family labelled the sentence a "joke"

The Solicitor-General said the attack was "intentional, unprovoked and gratuitous, and Tai showed no remorse toward the man he had rendered defenceless".

On the Solicitor-General's appeal the sentence was increased to four and a half years.

It still didn't seem a lot.

In January this year Tai applied for parole. This was denied, though the parole board said they'd seen a positive change in Tai, acknowledging for the first time the blow and kick that ended Hawea's life.

About time.

Then this week, news that Tai had been released on parole, two years into his four and a half-year sentence.

Maybe the killing was a drunken mistake. But let's repeat that line from above: it was "intentional, unprovoked and gratuitous, and Tai showed no remorse toward the man he had rendered defenceless".

Two years. Is that what a life is worth?

Next Thursday, November 22 - a time of celebration for some as Americans mark Thanksgiving - will be a sombre day for Hawea's friends and family. It will be three years to the day since he died.

And already his killer is out of prison.