Head Hunters gang member Calen Morris avoids prison over witness intimidation in Auckland

Another of Morris’ tattoos depicts an officer being run over by a motorbike, with a banner reading “Cobalt” underneath.

With his antics posted online for all to see, Morris became an easy target for the disruption campaigns. However, his semi-celebrity status gave him the ability to harass police in return, further deepening his legal troubles.

“They hit me, I hit back,” Morris explained to the Herald this week as he stood outside Auckland District Court immediately after his sentencing for a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

He used a vape alongside his partner as they waited for Morris to be fitted with an electronic ankle monitor.

He’s moving on with his life and trying to make right some of the petty disagreements that got him into trouble, he told a judge this week – later repeating the sentiment to his social media followers.

A screenshot from Calen Morris’ former social media account shows an image that he had tattooed on his arm.

“I’ve shaken hands and apologised to some of the officers I had problems with,” he said as he wore a suit and tie in the dock. “I know it’s their job.”

Judge Kirsten Lummis encouraged the sentiment but pointed out he still had a tendency to lash out “like a child” when faced with criticism. She urged him to make good on the promise, repeating several times that she would have no problem converting the sentence to imprisonment if authorities complain about his antagonising attitude again.

‘I push their buttons’

By Morris’ own account, he was sent to live with family in Australia as a teen after being expelled from school and dabbling in the drug trade. While overseas, he got more heavily involved in the criminal underworld and was sentenced to prison for the first time at age 21.

He was deported after serving a second prison sentence of two and a half years for attacking two men outside a nightclub.

He joined the Head Hunters, which his cousin and other family members had been associated with, after his involuntary return to New Zealand.

Morris’ legal issues in New Zealand began in 2020, when police raided his West Auckland home and found two loaded pistols underneath the floorboards, as well as ammunition and a banned high-capacity magazine.

Head Hunters member Calen Morris, who has reached semi-celebrity status via social media, stands outside Auckland District Court after his sentencing. Photo / Craig Kapitan

He claimed one of his reasons for keeping the firearms was because he was rattled and wanted to protect his family after his cousin’s murder five years earlier.

A Waitākere District Court judge later sentenced him to community supervision, noting the “amazing steps” he’d taken to address his addictions and serve as a better role model for his young son. The judge ended that hearing by predicting she didn’t think she’d see Morris before her again.

“I believe so too,” he responded.

But Morris thinks that arrest, with his outspoken gang loyalty and his public profile, prompted police to single him out when the nationwide gang crackdowns were launched.

“I would have to be the gingerbread man – the number one target,” he previously told the Secrets of the Underworld podcast – sentiments he repeated to the Herald this week.

“I give them ammo … I push their buttons … Sometimes I just can’t let it go because I just want to win the fight, bro.”

Witness intimidation

Police charged Morris with escaping custody and illegal operation of a motor vehicle in 2024 after he was stopped while riding a souped-up electric scooter deemed too powerful to be street legal.

He posted a video of the interaction on his Instagram account, including a depiction of him bolting on foot, resulting in the escape charge.

A video from Muriwai Beach posted to Calen Morris’ former Instagram account led to charges of dangerous driving. Photo / NZ Police

Police filed more driving offences against Morris the following month after he posted a video of a person in a clown mask allegedly driving dangerously on Auckland’s Muriwai Beach in an expensive Mercedes-Benz G Wagon and an all-terrain vehicle. Followers of his account knew the mask to be a mascot of sorts. He sometimes wore it while interacting with police.

In a statement to his followers at the time, Morris insisted it wasn’t him behind the mask and predicted the charges would have to be dropped because, as he put it, “No face, no case”.

Police, meanwhile, described the charges as necessary to hold Morris accountable for “shocking driving behaviour”. And there was “icing on the cake” to the raids, authorities said, noting that they also confiscated eight motorcycles from Morris’ repair shop – some belonging to other gang members – because of unpaid fines and other offences.

But Morris’ most serious charge was filed in May last year, after police reviewed another social media post on the eve of his trial for the driving offences and deemed the video to be threatening towards a witness.

Calen Morris was known to wear a clown mask while interacting with police for his social media accounts.

A detective leading the gang disruption unit was scheduled to give evidence about Morris and his social media habits.

In a post shared with his roughly 80,000 Instagram fans at the time, Morris showed a large photo illustration of a Glock pistol accompanying a recent media article about a police-issue firearm that had been turned in by the public after it fell from the roof of a patrol vehicle.

“You saw this as police incompetency,” Judge Lummis summed up this week, noting that Morris used the article as a launch pad to “highlight what you saw as further incompetency” by the officer leading the investigation against him.

The post also included a short video showing the detective walking back and forth, edited “to make him look, in your words, like a clown”, the judge said. The video was posted with the song Dumb and Dumber by Redd and had the words “See you tomorrow” overlaid, along with the officer’s full name.

Morris insisted the post wasn’t a deliberate threat intended to dissuade the officer from giving evidence but at the conclusion of a three-day trial at Auckland District Court this past May, a jury disagreed.

As a result of the conviction, Morris faced up to seven years’ imprisonment.

‘Like a child’

Judge Lummis noted it was far from the first time Morris had set out to provoke or unsettle officers with deliberately offensive “trolling-type behaviour”. Many of his targets were frontline staff simply trying to carry out the job they were assigned, she said.

The judge took special exception to a “particularly nasty” online comment Morris made about what she described as “a warm, glowing image” a female officer had posted of her pregnancy. Morris referred to her as a heifer and taunted: “What is it, Krispy Kreme baby or just Extra Crispy Bucket?”

Asked about both posts while in the dock ahead of his sentencing, Morris said he wants to apologise to the detective in person next time he sees him to put things right between them. The judge commended him for that but noted his attitude towards the pregnancy post remains troubling.

“She attacked me,” he told the judge, claiming also that he didn’t realise the woman was pregnant.

Judge Kirsten Lummis. Photo / Michael Craig

The judge corrected him on the spot, noting that his immediate response should have been: “Yeah, if that was my wife … I would be appalled.”

Instead, she continued, “Your immediate response is like a child: ‘But Mum, she did that to me!’

“That part is not okay. You need to take responsibility for the things you’ve done and acknowledge that’s not okay.”

Morris accepted the point.

“That’s not okay,” he repeated. “That’s not okay.”

Crown prosecutor Victoria Melvin sought a two-year starting point for his conviction while defence lawyer Vernon Tava asked for 18 months.

While two years is the threshold at which a judge can consider home detention, Melvin said Morris’ behaviour was serious enough that it warranted prison. She cited his history of being standoffish with authorities, which might make a non-custodial sentence difficult to enforce, and said there were doubts about the genuineness of his remorse.

Deterrence and denunciation are especially important, she argued, suggesting that the gun imagery used in the post “glorifies and publicises violent behaviour”.

Judge Lummis instead settled on a 20-month starting point with a one-month uplift for his having committed the crime while on bail.

‘Yes man’ needed

“I am prepared to give you that chance because it [prison] is unfair to your children,” she said, ordering a sentence of 10 months’ home detention. “I see the love and care you have for your children shines through.”

But from now on, she said, Morris needs to be a “yes man” while dealing with authorities and needs to think carefully before he posts online.

“You need to know that if that is not working, you will be sending yourself to prison,” she said. “I would expect that [case] to be sent back to me. So we’re very, very clear, right?”

“Absolutely,” Morris responded.

The judge also briefly considered erasing $18,000 in outstanding fines after Morris’ lawyer noted he is of “limited means”, but she ultimately decided against it because she didn’t have details about why they were imposed.

Morris and other online influencers, including Millie Elder-Holmes, were targeted in a Department of Internal Affairs crackdown last year for ignoring warnings against promoting overseas gambling sites to their followers.

Calen Morris (left), Millie Elder-Holmes, Tuhira Wana and Billy Whaanga have been fined by Internal Affairs for promoting online gambling. Montage / Phil Welch

Morris, who was issued with four separate $5000 fines, said he only posted while he was in the Cook Islands but accepted the fines rather than face another prosecution.

The DIA’s director of gambling last year told the Herald that it was believed, although only anecdotally, that offshore casinos were paying influencers well over what they were being fined. She considered it to be in the ballpark of “tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands”, while some influencers told the Herald they had been offered up to $50,000.

‘Extinguish some demons’

Morris and partner Olivia Shannon were optimistic as they lingered outside the courthouse after the hearing, noting that they now interact with a new police liaison with whom they have “a great relationship”.

But in the past, he said, the police harassment tactics have been “just too far”.

“Nobody sees what I go through,” he said, listing grievances about prior police raids. “Then I say one word and I get in trouble.”

But he stopped himself short and emphasised that his interest in starting over with police is genuine.

“That’s how I should have been from the start,” he said.

Head Hunter social media influencer Calen Morris stands outside Auckland District Court with his partner, Olivia Shannon. Photo / Dean Purcell

It was a sentiment he continued online hours later, in the caption of a post showing off his new ankle bracelet.

“… I’m happy to say that after 6 years and in 16 months I’ll be fine and dusted to be #free again!” he wrote. “I’ll get my life back. Riding my bikes with my hair in the wind.

“Thank you to all in my corner; I’ll be using this time to elevate, extinguish some demons and address what needs to be done. I’m sure everyone around me is happy to see this chapter almost over.

“… Work with the system so it doesn’t work against you. I’m moving forward and not looking back.”

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

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