This apparent change of attitude, and two years in a special unit which provides psychological therapy for violent offenders, have convinced the Parole Board to release him from jail under strict conditions.
He has served less than half his eight years, two months’ jail term for drug dealing, wounding with intent to injure, kidnapping and assault within a family relationship.
The violence was against his former partner and an elderly good Samaritan who stopped his car to help her during a protracted incident one night in Napier in September 2022.
Despite what the Parole Board has called his “good work” in prison, Kireka has been reminded he can be recalled to prison if he lapses before his statutory release date in November 2030.
He has been assessed by a psychologist as having a medium risk of committing another violent offence.
And it will not be the first time he has claimed to have gone straight.
In 2021 media interviews, Kireka said he had finished with his violent past and was pursuing a career as a personal trainer, and establishing a fitness business after being released from a previous prison term in 2017.
This was before the night in September 2022, when he got into a dispute with his then partner on a Napier petrol station forecourt.
The woman sought refuge at the Napier police station, which was closed, where CCTV footage showed her covered in blood.
Kireka caught her and forced her into his car, driving away and stopping on Marine Parade after hitting a roundabout.
The woman escaped and flagged down a passing motorist, telling the elderly man that she was being chased by a gang member.
The driver and his wife took the woman into their car but Kireka chased them, overtook their vehicle and forced it to stop by blocking it with his own.
Kireka then opened the driver’s side door and punched the elderly man in the face multiple times with significant force, causing bruising, a brain bleed, fractures, a deep wound and cuts to the lips and neck.
The man managed to drive away but crashed and extensively damaged his car.
Kireka’s partner ran away but was chased and forced back into his car.
When Kireka was arrested, police found 267g of cannabis.
Later, in custody at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison, Kireka used a mobile phone he hid in his prison cell to get methamphetamine and cannabis smuggled into the jail by his associates.
In November 2023, Kireka was sentenced by Judge Russell Collins to 10 years and 10 months. This sentence was reduced on appeal to eight years and two months, which included time he was remanded in custody.
He became eligible for parole after one-third of this sentence and was first seen by the Parole Board in June 2025, when parole was denied.
He appeared again in May this year and was released in June with conditions including a night-time curfew in the Wellington region and not entering Hawke’s Bay. He wears an electronic monitoring anklet to enforce this.
Kireka is also not allowed to contact his victims or associate with Mongrel Mob members.
He is banned from using alcohol or illicit drugs.
Kireka told the Parole Board in May that he had found his treatment programme “extremely challenging”.
“He said he came to understand that his behaviour, particularly with reference to violence, was cowardly,” the Parole Board report said.
“[He said] no-one deserved that kind of treatment and he now felt shame, regret and remorse about his past behaviours.
“He believes that unpacking past trauma has been significant for him as he has come to understand the drivers of his violent behaviour.”
The most serious of Kireka’s offending before the 2022 events was in 2011, involving unlawful possession of a firearm, wounding with intent to injure and assault with a blunt instrument. He was then sentenced to three years and four months’ jail.
In 2015, he was sentenced to one year and 10 months’ imprisonment for demanding with intent to steal.
He was convicted of family violence offending in 2019.
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 crime and justice writing is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
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