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% for Mellow’s guilty pleas, 10% for his “horrific” background, 10% for his methamphetamine addiction, and 5% 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.
Jade Mellow appeared in the Whakatāne District Court via audio-visual link for sentencing. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
Minimum non-parole period proposed
Thompson also said that a minimum non-parole period of at least 50% 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.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.