Black Power Whanganui chapter president Damien Shane Kuru will be home in time for Christmas, despite being again denied parole from his sentence of imprisonment following a jury's guilty verdict for the manslaughter of rival Mongrel Mob member Kevin Neihana Ratana in 2018.
Black Power Whanganui chapter president Damien Shane Kuru will be home in time for Christmas, despite being again denied parole from his sentence of imprisonment following a jury's guilty verdict for the manslaughter of rival Mongrel Mob member Kevin Neihana Ratana in 2018.
A Black Power member who was jailed following the killing of a rival gang member is expected to walk free from prison by the end of the year.
But, despite his release drawing nearer, the Whanganui chapter president says he will continue to challenge the manslaughter conviction that put him behind bars.
Damien Shane Kuru appeared before the Parole Board earlier this month but was denied early release. He will get another chance at parole when he appears before the board again in September.
But even if he’s not granted parole in September, his five-year, two-month term of imprisonment expires in December, when he is expected to become a free man.
Kuru has been in prison since his arrest following the death of Mongrel Mob member Kevin Neihana Ratana in 2018.
He denied being involved, but was found guilty of manslaughter at trial in 2021. The conviction was contested in the Court of Appeal (COA) on the grounds testimony by a police expert was prejudicial.
The reserve decision of COA Justices David Collins, Matthew Muir and Helen Cull, released in May 2023, dismissed the challenge, but the panel members were divided on the outcome and the case is now heading for the Supreme Court.
Defence lawyer Jamie Waugh said Kuru refused an offer pre-trial, assuring an easy path to an early release in exchange for his guilty plea, to stand up for what he believed was “tika”, what was true, and his stance remained staunch.
”He will continue to fight to clear his name after he is released,” Waugh told NZME.
“He said to me once, ‘I would plead guilty if I had done anything wrong - it’s about principles. I wasn’t involved in the death of Kevin Ratana in any way’.
”How could I face my kids if I accepted being involved when I never was?” Kuru told Waugh.
”When you don’t have much, all you have is your principles.”
The Crown, which lacked any direct evidence linking Kuru to Ratana’s killing, the planning of it or him even being at the scene, instead relied on the testimony of police gang expert Detective Inspector Craig Scott at trial.
Scott told the jury in his experience the attack would likely have occurred with the president’s sanction.
Kevin Ratana was killed on the front lawn of the house he shared with his partner in Whanganui in August 2018.
Auckland University Law School Associate Professor Carrie Leonetti believed Scott’s evidence resulted in a miscarriage of justice and the Supreme Court needed to step in.
Leonetti, who teaches criminal law, evidence, psychiatry and the law, and miscarriages of justice, said the “typical” behaviour testimony led the jury to make inferences based on “pure conjecture” and not “circumstantial evidence”.
“If the Court of Appeal is unwilling or unable to see why it is not a reliable basis for juries to base their decisions, the Supreme Court should step in and regulate it.”
Issues of accommodation and potential exclusion zones, discussed in the Parole Board’s recently released decision, demonstrated Kuru’s freedom was getting closer.
Convenor Annabel Markham detailed how Kuru’s conduct had been excellent while living in the self-care units at Kaitoke Prison and, while the accommodation quandary remained, returning to Whanganui was possible.
A cultural report prepared for sentencing said Kuru, who has patrilineal whakapapa to the river tribes, as well as Ngāti Tūwharetoa and a matrilineal line to Ngāti Pākehā o Aotearoa, is a son of the Whanganui River.
Lawyer Anna Brosnahan pushed for the board to reveal its preparedness to consider an address in his hometown, notwithstanding it was where the offending occurred.
On the morning of August 21, 2018, Black Power members, some wearing patches, face coverings and hoodies, descended on an address in Castlecliff where Ratana had been living, demanding he leave their turf.
However, when Ratana stepped out of the house armed and wearing his patch, he was shot in the neck and died instantly.
Markham detailed that while Ratana’s mother, Rangitaumata Vakatini, wanted Kuru excluded from entering Hawke’s Bay, Horowhenua and South Taranaki after his release, she expressly didn’t object to his return to Whanganui.
Kuru told the board the house he lived in and had hoped to purchase at the time of the offending had been sold while he was in prison.
The victim notification register would be checked so the views of others registered could be sought, but Markham said in principle, the board did not discount Whanganui as a possible release destination.
“Although that will be for the future board to decide. We make no comment on the proposed address as it is yet to be checked.”
Black Power life member Denis O'Reilly says Damien Kuru should be allowed to return to Whanganui after his release from prison.
Justice Collins, in delivering the COA’s decision, ruled Kuru’s conviction was not unreasonable in spite of there being no direct evidence against him.
However, there was circumstantial evidence which was for the jury to assess, he said.
“As we have emphasised, it is not our role to substitute our view of the evidence for that of the jury provided there was sufficient evidence for the jury to have reasonably convicted Mr Kuru.”
In differing from the majority verdict, Justice Cull explained the evidence presented lacked the probative value to allow the jury to reach the required criminal standard, of guilt being beyond reasonable doubt, to convict.
The combination of a lack of proof and the expert evidence led to impermissible reasoning by the jury, Justice Cull claimed, resulting in an “unreasonable verdict” and “unsafe conviction”.
“Each strand does not have to be proved to the highest standard, but the overall strength of the combined strands together must satisfy the criminal standard.”
Black Power life member Denis O’Reilly described Kuru as an intelligent, positively oriented, new-generation Black Power leader with a consultative, pro-social, tolerant and inclusive style who had worked for years to end the intergenerational hatred between the gangs.
He said the jury’s verdict left him feeling “aghast” and claimed it appeared to be a form of double jeopardy.
“Damien told me he thought it was racism in play.”
O’Reilly had no doubt Kuru should be allowed to return to Whanganui once he’s released.
“He is a child of the river. This is his turangawaewae. You might as well try to stop him from being Māori.
“This non-association thing is bulls**t.”
Kuru was one of six Black Power members jailed for Ratana’s killing - the shooter was never identified and the murder weapon has not been recovered.
Leighton Keith joined NZME as an Open Justice reporter based in Whanganui in 2022. He’s been a journalist for 20 years, covering a variety of topics and rounds.
