Alan Swan Norman, left, Tremain Turfry-Ross, and Tukotahi King await sentencing at the High Court in Nelson for the manslaughter of Lake Takimoana in Washington Valley, Nelson in 2022. Photo: POOL
A home invasion that began with Killer Beez gang associates looking for members of the Mongrel Mob in Nelson, ended with a young man being shot in the chest.
Lake Takimoana, 22, died last February in the bedroom of his Washington Road home.
Three of the men involved in his manslaughter received prison sentences on Tuesday at the High Court in Nelson.
Tukotahi King, 32, Tremain Turfry-Ross, 26, and Alan Norman, 33, who are associated with the Killer Beez gang, faced trial for more serious charges, including murder in July, but pleaded guilty to lesser charges on the second day of the trial.
The court heard how on 22 February last year, the three men and at least one other travelled in a convoy of two vehicles to Takimoana's home in Nelson's Washington Valley.
Norman remained with the vehicles, while King and Turfry-Ross entered the home, wearing neck gaiters and armed with a baseball bat and a firearm.
The pair confronted Takimoana at his front door, King pointed the firearm at him and walked him backwards towards his bedroom.
King then demanded to know "where the dog shit was" - a derogatory term used by rival gangs to describe a member of the Mongrel Mob.
Takimoana said he was not one of them and Turfry-Ross acknowledged he knew that.
King slapped Takimoana in the head, causing him to fall backwards onto his bed. King then lay beside him and pointing the loaded firearm at his chest, discharging it. Takimoana died from the gunshot wound.
King and Turfry-Ross returned to the cars where Norman was waiting and fled the scene. Turfry-Ross later set fire to one of the vehicles while the other was found abandoned on the side of the road in Blenheim.
Justice Andru Isac sentenced King, who he said was the principal offender, to eight years, three months in prison for manslaughter, with a non-parole period of five years and six months.
Turfry-Ross was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison for manslaughter and arson.
Norman, whose role in the shooting was different to the others in that he did not enter Takimoana's home and the extent of his knowledge about the attack was not clear, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for aggravated burglary, being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter and arson.
In a victim impact statement, Takimoana's mother, Robin Lloyd said no words could come close to describing the heartbreak of having her son's life so dramatically taken.
"The tragic end to his life has devastated all of us, turning us all against each other, blaming one another for not doing or knowing or just sensing anything we could have done to make things different.
"What upsets me daily is that I will never have a moko from him to enjoy and cherish and tell stories to about his cheeky happy go lucky father."
Takimoana's sister said her brother had been the heart of their family and his death had broken them.
"He has taken me to the darkest time in my life, when I no longer wanted to live without him, where I was willing to give up everything to go with him.
"My love for him, my little brother, will never be matched and you'll always be in debt to my family and I."
Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber said the planned gang-related attack on the home and Takimoana's death was both senseless and pointless.
"We've seen it time and time again in our communities, groups of men from one gang or another, taking weapons, looking to confront other men from a rival gang and somebody gets killed."
Webber said Takimoana was not the man the three were looking for, but an innocent bystander who had lost his life in an unprovoked attack.
"It can't even be said that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time because he was in his own bedroom, minding his own business when this happened to him."
Justice Andru Isac at the sentencing in the High Court in Nelson. Photo: Pool / Stuff / Martin de Ruyter
Justice Andru Isac said there were several aggravating factors to the manslaughter; it involved a home invasion where others where present, the three assailants were armed, one with a loaded firearm and they were members of a gang.
Judge Isac said while he accepted King did not intend to shoot Takimoana, he was still culpable for his death.
"You placed a loaded firearm with no safety catch against the victim's chest while he was lying on a bed beside you, that the firearm might accidentally discharge was obvious and with it the risk of serious injury or death. Your conduct was extraordinarily reckless, and your culpability is therefore significant."
All three defendants were described as having childhoods that featured significant violence, deprivation and substance abuse.
King was expelled from school in year nine and did not return to education.
"It's little surprise that you found your way into gang life and continue as an adult to perpetuate on others the harmful patterns of violence that were inflicted on you, when you were a young person."
Both Turfry-Ross and Norman were 501 deportees who had limited social support networks in New Zealand outside the gangs. All three men were methamphetamine users.
Judge Isac said Takimoana's death was an immense loss for his whānau, partner and friends and there was nothing he could say to ease their suffering, over the loss of a young life, taken so needlessly.