Rotorua gang shooting offender breaches home detention

A Black Power associate fired shots at utes containing Mongrel Mob members outside the Westend shops in Rotorua. Photos / NZME

An offender who vowed to change his ways and was spared a jail sentence for his role in a Rotorua gang shooting has breached his home detention.

He was 18 at the time of the 2023 West End shooting, and was granted permanent name suppression when sentenced in February to nine months’ home detention for his role in the daylight public incident. .

On May 28 this year, while serving his home detention sentence, he failed a cannabis test. Then on July 10, he was nearly five hours late returning home after an approved absence.

Judge Greg Hollister-Jones said he took breaches of home detention seriously and sentenced him to a further two weeks’ home detention.

The offender was serving home detention after pleading guilty to unlawfully carrying a firearm and unlawfully discharging a firearm, as well as 13 other unrelated dishonesty and traffic-related charges. Some related to him doing wheelies on a trail bike around Rotorua.

At the time of the shooting, he was in a car with his then-Black Power associate, Himiona Buffett, when they pulled in behind two utes containing Mongrel Mob members on Malfroy Rd, at the intersection with Old Taupō Rd.

The teen covered his face, leaned out the passenger window and fired five shots at the rival gang utes.

One bullet shattered a ute’s rear window and another travelled through the open window of an uninvolved car. No one was hurt.

While on bail awaiting sentencing, the teen cut off his electronically-monitored ankle bracelet and went on the run for more than three months.

He was eventually found and put into the care of a person in Rotorua who the court heard “saw potential in him”.

Judge Hollister-Jones gave him extra time to prove himself in his new circumstances before sentencing.

At sentencing, Judge Hollister-Jones spared him from a prison sentence for several reasons, including saying he had one of the worst childhoods he had ever seen during his time as a judge.

The teen was prospecting for a gang at the time of the shooting but said at sentencing he was turning his back on gangs and crime and striving for a better life.

Judge Hollister-Jones said it was better for the teen, and the community, to not send him to prison, where he would be forced back into gang association.

Today in court, the teen’s lawyer, Grace Banuelos, asked Judge Hollister-Jones to sentence the teen to community work or that he be sentenced on the breaches if he contravened his home detention conditions again.

Banuelos explained the teen was late back from his approved absence because he was at a family gathering.

She said he was studying a trade and was looking forward to ending his sentence in November.

However, Judge Hollister-Jones said a “firmer” approach was needed.

“I take breaches of home detention very seriously. This was an absence of nearly five hours.”

Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.