Tokoroa garage shooting: Convicted murderer Moetū Kaitai appeals life sentence

Moetū Kaitai's case was heard in the Court of Appeal in Wellington this morning. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A woman who shot and killed a man in a Tokoroa garage says she was sick of being attacked by men.

Moetū Kaitai is appealing her conviction and life imprisonment term for murdering Kalvin Kana in Tokoroa in May 2020.

Justice Matthew Muir handed down the sentence in September 2022, with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years and nine months.

Kaitai is challenging this in the Court of Appeal, arguing it was never her intention to kill.

“I didn’t intend it. It wasn’t my intention I was just sick of males attacking me,” Kaitai’s lawyer Tiana Epati read from a statement today.

Kaitai was high on methamphetamine and walking around the South Waikato town with a firearm when “mild provocations” from her victim, Kana, tipped her over the edge.

Evidence at trial showed there was some sort of confrontation, with Kaitai loading and pointing the gun at Kana, who grabbed the barrel moments before the fatal shot.

He died almost instantly from a wound to the torso.

Kaitai was found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Rotorua in August last year and sentenced to life imprisonment a month later.

During her sentencing, the court heard Kaitai had lived a life in a gang environment and had been involved with Black Power and drug dealing which began in her teens.

Kaitai, now in her early 30s, was said to be a heavy user of methamphetamine and had experienced several abusive relationships.

She had been assaulted the night before she shot Kana dead in the garage.

Justice Muir said at Kaitai’s sentencing that Kana was in the wrong place at the wrong time after Katai told police she was sick of males attacking her.

Epati argued today that Kaitai’s case wasn’t fairly put to trial, saying her client was let down by the trial judge’s summing up of the case and direction to the jury.

She submitted Kaitai was acting in self-defence and the discharge of the firearm was accidental in the struggle between her client and Kana.

Kaitai did not give evidence during the trial last year, which was referred to multiple times by the judge.

Epati submitted this was unfair on her client and the defence case, and argued there was more information needed for the jury to apply a more refined deliberation.

Lawyer Zannah Johnston, on behalf of the Crown, reiterated the case put forward at trial by the Crown.

In Johnston’s submission there was limited room for the jury to consider an accidental discharge, which would have disproven murderous intent.

Johnston said the judge had covered the relevant details regarding self-defence, and a verdict of manslaughter was made available to the jury at trial.

“Given the jury’s conviction for murder the jury has said yes to murderous intent ... given that the jury have accepted the Crown’s primary case of murder.”

The references made to Kaitai not giving evidence by the trial judge weren’t “sufficient enough to tip the scales”, according to Johnston.

The Court of Appeal decision was reserved.