He was last seen alive leaving the shed Cousins was living in at the time after an alleged beating by another person.
Cousins, 61, together with his daughter, Akasha Kaihana-King, 26, later admitted charges of kidnapping, assault with a weapon and demands to steal over the incident in the shed.
Last month Kaihana-King was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court to 10 months’ home detention by Judge Philip Crayton for her involvement.
Cousins received the same sentence when he appeared before Judge Crayton today.
Terrey’s sister, Gypsy Anderson, told the court in her victim impact statement that her brother trusted Cousins, and the older man used that against him to lure him there to attack him.
“You planned it ... you didn’t just take Joshua to the shed, you used distractions to keep him there.
“He trusted you ... and you used his continued trust to keep him there unaware. You could have stopped it but you chose not to.”
Court documents released to NZME show a storage container belonging to a third accused in the case was broken into three months before Terrey’s death and tools were stolen.
The owner is alleged to have believed Terrey was the main suspect but didn’t report the break-in to police.
On November 30, 2019, Terrey travelled from Whakatāne to Hamilton to see his 4-year-old son.
Later that day, he contacted Kaihana-King to get drugs off her and they organised to meet at the Rodney St, Nawton, property she shared with her father.
When Terrey was on his way, Kaihana-King told her father who then contacted the third accused. Terrey was held there until the woman - who is alleged to have brought a baseball bat - arrived.
The woman is alleged to have confronted Terrey and struck him multiple times around the body before taking his car keys and phone.
He was freed just after 1am.
Soon after, he ended up at the property of a relative of an associate but was told to leave.
Terrey’s movements from then until his body was found near a garden at the Western Community Centre on Hyde Ave at 1.30pm are unknown.
The woman, from Waihī, is defending charges against her in the case and will go to trial next year.
Defence lawyer Roger Laybourn told the court Cousins had generally led a law-abiding life apart from minor convictions in the 1990s.
Cousins “deeply regrets to this day” what happened that night but did not lay a hand on Terrey, Laybourn said.
“I don’t see anything to suggest he was tied up, but he was confronted and assaulted in a very brutal fashion.”
Laybourn conceded “it perhaps took a bit longer than it should have to accept [charges] but there were a lot of personal difficulties going on his life”.
“He’s a frail man that tried to tough it out alone and was battling some mental health that probably would have benefitted from professional help,” Laybourn said.
“But he’s very candid about the role that he played and that he wished it had never happened.
“He blames himself for this situation. He says he had been struggling to cope with the loss of his wife.”
Judge Crayton accepted that Cousins was suitable for home detention, rather than jail.
“It’s an opportunity for you to ensure this does not happen again.”
However, his 10-month sentence would be judicially monitored, meaning three-monthly reports would be sent to the judge for review.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for eight years and been a journalist for 19.
