By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter of 
Jade Mellow appears in court via video link after his methamphetamine-fuelled rampage where he shot at police and held a man hostage near Edgecumbe in April 2024.
Photo: NZME / Hannah Bartlett
A gang member who shot at police, then held a wounded man hostage during a two-hour standoff, has had more than a year added to his jail sentence after Crown lawyers complained it was “manifestly inadequate”.
Jade Raymond Mellow’s prison sentence has now been increased to seven years, and he will have to spend at least half of that locked up before becoming eligible for parole.
Mellow appeared in the Whakatāne District Court in February after pleading guilty to more than 20 charges.
They included using a firearm against police officers, kidnapping, wounding with intent to injure and aggravated burglary, all related to violence against police and innocent people in their homes on 24 April, 2024.
About 10pm that night, Mellow was parked in a car near Edgecumbe with a cut-down .22 calibre rifle, which he fired twice at police officers who stopped with their lights flashing when they noticed the stolen vehicle.
The officers drove off and repositioned themselves a few hundred metres away, calling for back-up, as Mellow ran to a house nearby and asked the female occupant for her truck.
When she refused, he went to another house, brandishing the firearm, and forced his way in to grab car keys from the kitchen bench, despite the occupant initially trying to keep him out.
He was challenged at a police cordon while driving off in the car, but accelerated away and deliberately crashed through a closed gate at a property with a house and a separate residential unit.
He entered the unit and confronted the 74-year-old occupant, punching him and striking him in the head with a firearm when he refused to hand over his keys.
A man came out of the adjacent house after being woken by his dog barking.
This person saw the 74-year-old man lying semi-conscious on the floor of the unit, but Mellow told him, “You better f*** off before I shoot you and your dog”.
‘I’ve got a hostage here’
When police arrived, Mellow told them, “I’ve got a f****** hostage in here,” and held them off for about two hours, during which time he smashed windows and put the firearm to the man’s head, yelling, “I’ll f****** kill him!”.
Finally, Mellow surrendered.
Mellow, who was 31 at the time of the offending, told police he had been on a three-day methamphetamine binge and was on the run from other gang members.
Mellow had more than 90 previous convictions, including for assault with a weapon and with a blunt instrument, male assaults female and assaulting a person in a family relationship, common assault, presenting a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm, aggravated robbery and threatening to kill and do grievous bodily harm.
Jade Mellow appears in court before he had his gang-related facial tattoos done.
Photo: NZME
Mellow pleaded guilty to the April 2024 offending after receiving a sentence indication of 12.5 years in prison, with discounts to be applied at sentencing.
In the Whakatāne District Court in February, Judge Melinda Mason more than halved the indicated sentence by applying discounts, arriving at a prison term of five years and nine months.
The discounts included 25 percent for Mellow’s guilty pleas, 10 percent for his “horrific” background, 10 percent for his methamphetamine addiction, and 5 percent for remorse and rehabilitative efforts, including his stated desire to leave the Mongrel Mob and have his gang tattoos removed.
However, the Crown appealed the sentence to the Court of Appeal, arguing that it was “manifestly inadequate”.
Crown counsel Ben Thompson said the discounts given to Mellow were “unduly generous”.
He said they failed to respect the nature and seriousness of the offending, and the related objectives of denunciation, deterrence and community protection.
He said no discount should have been given for Mellow’s addiction, as the offending followed the voluntary consumption of meth, which the Sentencing Act said could not be used as a mitigating factor.
Thompson also said Mellow’s expressions of remorse were already provided for by the full credit given for his guilty pleas, and Mellow’s claim to be leaving the Mongrel Mob was based on his own “self-reporting” only.
Minimum non-parole period proposed
Thompson also said that a minimum non-parole period of at least 50 percent should be imposed, to protect the community from Mellow’s “increasingly erratic, violent and dangerous offending”.
Mellow’s lawyer, John Wayne Howell, said his client’s addiction had a causal connection to the offending, particularly as it was impulsive rather than premeditated and illustrated Mellow’s “disordered thinking”.
The Court of Appeal disagreed with Thompson that Mellow’s drug addiction should not be taken into account, particularly because his early exposure to drugs, and the likelihood that his deprived upbringing contributed to his own drug use and “poor life choices”.
But the Appeal Court justices said discounts based on personal mitigating factors needed to be constrained, and some discounts “overlap”, requiring courts to step back and consider the effect of them combined.
“Mr Mellow used a firearm against police officers in the execution of [their] duty; broke into two homes with the same firearm; used the weapon to assault and detain an older victim; and to threaten both him and another with death,” the Court of Appeal decision said.
“Mr Mellow was then on bail for gang-related and other offending, and subject to release conditions in connection with an earlier sentence of imprisonment for offending encompassing serious violence.”
The Court of Appeal quashed the sentence of five years and nine months in prison and replaced it with one of seven years.
It also imposed a minimum non-parole period of three years and six months.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.