Warning: This story contains details of family violence
Te Ngare Te Ake Ake, pictured on the morning of trial before guilty pleas were entered, has been sent to prison after holding his ex at his rural property and assaulting her over two days. Photo: NZME / Open Justice
A woman who turned up to her ex's "shack" on a rural property to smooth things over between them, ended up being beaten with a hammer and held there for two days.
The 22-year-old had hitchhiked to the property to speak to her former partner, Te Ngare Te Ake Ake, and initially, he asked her to leave.
However, as she started to walk away, he had a change of heart and told her to come back. Then he took her phone, Tauranga District Court heard this week at his sentencing.
What followed were days of assaults at his hands, beginning with him striking her with closed fists and kicking her as she lay on the ground, causing her to lose consciousness.
He also hit the left side of her face with a hammer.
Sometime later, he grabbed her by the throat to the point her vision went blurry and she passed out.
The woman reported feeling like her "eyes were trying to pop out of her head" and she had "ringing in her ears".
After she woke up, Te Ake Ake, 25, told her she was a "cheating b****" and that he hated her and couldn't let her go.
"I've got to kill you now," he said.
He repeated that threat during the two days she remained at the property. He also threatened to chop off her fingers and toes, asking her to "hold them out so he could see them".
The woman feared he would follow through on the threats, and when she attempted to leave, she was told that if she did, or if her family came to get her, he would "shoot them and bury them on the property".
She didn't have free access to her phone and said Te Ake Ake had made her tell her mother and friends that she'd been in a car accident but was okay.
After receiving the concerning messages, the woman's mother turned up at his house. According to the summary of facts, Te Ake Ake "was hesitant" to let his ex leave but "eventually" allowed her to go with her mother.
'It was a spontaneous act'
Te Ake Ake pleaded guilty to injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, kidnapping (unlawful detention), strangulation, and threatening to kill after a resolution was reached on the morning of trial in August - as part of that, the Crown agreed three charges be dismissed by the court.
Te Ake Ake's lawyer, Tony Rickard-Simms, said at sentencing that the Crown's submission that there had been premeditation needed to be viewed in context.
He said the address was remote and was accessed by a gravel road. It wasn't a situation where Te Ake Ake had sought the woman out, and the weapon used - a hammer - was already there.
"It was in the shack [his dwelling] because that was how he kept it together ... there was no planning or premeditation."
However, Crown prosecutor Caitlin Bourke said while he hadn't sought out the woman, his actions "couldn't be said to be spontaneous", because after the woman went to leave, Te Ake Ake had invited her back, and then was violent to her over multiple days.
Rickard-Simms responded further to this point, referring to statements from both the woman and Te Ake Ake.
He said when the woman went to leave, Te Ake Ake realised she had no way of going anywhere, as there were no buses, she didn't have transport, and the property was remote.
It was those circumstances that prompted him to invite her back inside, Rickard-Simms submitted.
"It wasn't until he was looking at her phone and started questioning her about other people, that the assault occurred. In my submission, it was a spontaneous act."
Rickard-Simms said Te Ake Ake had "got her blankets and fed her" during the time she was there, and suggested it was as much to do with the "isolation of the place", that she had remained there, as anything else.
Threats to bury woman and family
But the Crown said the seriousness of the offending included the multiple strikes to the victim's head and face area, including with a hammer, when she lay vulnerable on the ground.
She had been strangled to the point she couldn't breathe and the accompanying threats to her life aggravated this.
The remoteness of the property, and that it was rural, added to the sense of threat in his assertions that he would kill her, and would bury her and her family at the property, Bourke said.
The woman suffered broken teeth, a fractured cheekbone, swollen and bruised eyes, bleeding on her right ear drum, forehead swelling, and bruising over both legs.
The summary of facts said she had asked for help after the assaults but Te Ake Ake did not get her medical attention.
In her victim impact statement referred to by the judge, the woman said she had ongoing anxiety and depression, and struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
She endured flashbacks, struggled with physical affection from others, and suffered migraines.
She felt scared and isolated, and had moved away from Tauranga, and her family, after the offending.
Rickard-Simms said Te Ake Ake had become upset when he read the victim impact statement, which the judge noted "he should be" given the ongoing effects on her.
Rickard-Simms also read a letter of support from Deacon Ricky Kuka, Te Ake Ake's uncle. The letter said he had known Te Ake Ake his whole life.
"His family are so supportive in every way for Te Ngare because of his big heart and his ever-giving kindness," the letter said.
When it came to sentencing, Judge Melinda Mason took into account Te Ake Ake's age, background, struggles with addiction, remorse, and guilty pleas, and applied relevant discounts for those factors.
A one-month uplift was applied for previous convictions.
He received an end sentence of four years and five months imprisonment.
Judge Mason concluded by encouraging Te Ake Ake that she had seen correspondence to say he was doing well in custody, had changed the "ways he was viewing life", engaging in courses offered in prison, and had strong support from his family.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.