Whangārei District Court. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
A Northland man has been sentenced to home detention for an attack on a 70-year-old town custodian that sent shock waves through a Bay of Islands tourist town.
Dillon Taituha appeared for sentencing in the Whangārei District Court today on charges of aggravated robbery, kidnapping and car conversion.
The court heard the victims had parked their car on Paihia's Marsden Road in the early hours of 8 April 2022 when they were set upon by two men.
One of the victims, a 70-year-old who was employed by Focus Paihia Charitable Trust to keep the tourist town tidy, was dragged from the vehicle, punched and robbed of his keys and wallet.
The assailants forced one of the victims to drive them to the motel where he was staying, but the victim instead directed them to another motel where he knew CCTV was operating.
The offenders then took off in the custodian's car, which was found dumped later that day in Kawakawa with its wheels missing.
Taituha was spotted by police the following day and arrested after a chase through mangroves near Paihia.
The crime rocked Paihia, with the custodian's whānau and community leaders describing it at the time as "vicious" and "appalling".
The court was told Taituha, who was 31 at the time, had previous convictions for property crime and assault and had spent time in jail in 2015.
The Crown prosecutor raised concerns about elements of a pre-sentence report that cast doubt on Taituha's remorse, but also acknowledged his deeply troubled background.
Taituha's defence lawyer described his upbringing as "seriously dysfunctional".
She said her client was making "remarkable progress" in a rehabilitation centre run by the Grace Foundation in Auckland, which for the first time in his life was giving him clear structure and daily check-ins.
Taituha's uncle, Ngati Kawa Taituha, chairman of Te Tii Marae, spoke on the family's behalf and pledged their support to help him back on track.
Ngati Kawa Taituha said he had never seen his nephew work so hard as in his last year of rehab.
Judge Keith de Ridder said the victim impact statements revealed Taituha's actions had a "deep-seated, profound and ongoing traumatic effect" on one of the victims in particular.
While a sentence indication hearing had suggested a jail term of more than four years, Judge de Ridder agreed sending Taituha to prison would not be in anyone's interest given that his current rehabilitation appeared to be working.
After applying discounts for his troubled background, time spent on electronic bail and efforts in rehab, he arrived at an end sentence of 11 months home detention, to be served at the Grace Foundation.
Addressing Taituha, Judge de Ridder said: "There is simply no point whatsoever in putting aside that past year's progress you have made and sending you to prison, where I have no confidence at all, given the length of that sentence, that you would receive the kind of intensive rehabilitation this foundation can apply."
"It seems to me that it would be totally counter-productive not to continue what you have been doing."
By the time Taituha's sentence ended he would have spent two years with severe limits to his liberty, the judge said.
From the summary of facts and police reports at the time, it was clear Focus Paihia's newly installed, state-of-the-art CCTV system played a key role in both identifying Taituha and helping police locate him the following day.
Taituha had previously intimated he would plead guilty to all charges but pleas were only formally entered today.