Partner of slain Tribesmen gang member blames president for alleged murder, Hamilton jury hears

The partner of a patched Tribesmen Aotearoa member allegedly beaten to death by his own group, lays the blame for the ‘hot-box’ attack at the feet of the gang’s president.

“I hate him,” Rebecca Van Der Aa told Conway Rapana’s defence counsel Steve Franklin in the High Court at Hamilton yesterday.

“I have no respect for him at all,” she said.

Rapana, the gang’s president, together with vice-president Heremaia Gage, and patched members Ngahere Tapara and Te Patukino Biddle, and prospect Dean Collier, are on trial for the murder of Mark Hohua.

The crown alleges that Hohua, known as Shark, died after a ‘hot-box’ attack on June 18, 2022, by the defendants.

A hot-box is where gang members dish out “discipline” on one of their own after alleged “wrongdoings or offences”.

In Hohua’s case, he allegedly set up a direct debit using the gang’s bank account from online website, Layaway, which sells homeware and personal items and incurred a $1200 debt.

Crown solicitor Richard Jenson told the jury that word quickly spread, and Rapana sanctioned the hot-box on the 48-year-old, which caused his fatal injuries.

Te Patukino Biddle, Heremaia Gage, Ngahere Tapara, Conway Rapana, and Dean Collier pictured during their first trial in the High Court at Rotorua last year. The trial was abandoned after the judge became ill. Photo / Andrew Warner

Biddle’s defence counsel, Matthew Goodwin, claimed that while the hot-box had “gone wrong”, Hohua was killed by a critical head injury he suffered when he fell down “steep and treacherous stairs” on Rapana’s rural Waimana property.

That was why his client pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter at the start of the re-trial.

 Hohua was rushed to Whakatāne Hospital by Collier and another gang member, but died the following day.

‘He was warned not to go’

Rebecca Van Der Aa lived with Hohua in Whakatāne.

Questioned by Jenson, she said Hohua grew up in Murupara and was “practically born into” gangs.

He became a patched member of another gang in 2018 before joining the Tribesmen, not long before he died, she said.

Hohua had known Rapana for more than 20 years, and Rapana and Hohua’s brother, Matiu, later established the gang in 2020 or 2021.

In evidence, Van Der Aa said on the morning of Hohua’s death, they were woken by a phone call about 6am.

Hohua then went to visit Matiu.

He returned about 8.30am and told her he had been warned that he was going to get hot-boxed at a gang hui that morning for the money going missing.

Asked about Hohua’s demeanour when he spoke to her, Van Der Aa said, “he didn’t want to go”.

“I asked him not to go and he said he wasn’t going to go.”

She had work in Ōpōtiki at 9am, and when she got home about 3.30pm, she tried to ring Hohua’s phone, but it had been turned off.

‘He would still be alive if it weren’t for him’

Franklin, on behalf of his client, put to her that Rapana had tried to help Hohua “get his life in better order”.

Van Der Aa said that was before the Tribesmen Aotearoa chapter was set up, and that Rapana “didn’t hold his hand through it all”.

Tribesmen Aotearoa president Conway Rapana pictured in the High Court at Hamilton on Monday. Photo / Belinda Feek

Franklin said it appeared that she held a bit of animosity towards his client.

“I hate him,” she responded.

“I have no respect for him at all.”

Franklin questioned why she couldn’t give any credit to Rapana for his help over the years.

“If it wasn’t for him, Shark would still be here,” she said.

“He would still be alive.”

Biddle’s defence counsel, Matthew Goodwin, also suggested Rapana had done a lot to help Hohua over the years.

That included helping sort anger and drug issues, getting him back into fitness and letting him stay at his Hodges Rd property when he needed to, Goodwin said.

Van Der Aa agreed and explained that Hohua had a rough childhood, had developed bipolar and was a meth addict.

But he was tough and knew how to handle himself, she said.

The trial is set down for four weeks before a jury and Justice David Johnstone.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.