{"id":110506,"date":"2025-10-31T10:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/110506\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T10:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:47:14","slug":"hamilton-woman-anna-rikiau-jailed-for-racially-abusing-neighbour-assaulting-motorist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/110506\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton woman Anna Rikiau jailed for racially abusing neighbour, assaulting motorist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI would argue [she should] get as many as it takes<\/a>,\u201d McKenna replied.<\/p>\n

But Judge Cocurullo disagreed.<\/p>\n

Rikiau admitted 17 charges, which spanned from April 4, 2022, to January 21 this year.<\/p>\n

The first involved a serious assault in Hamilton of a woman who was driving along Odette St.<\/p>\n

\"AnnaAnna Rikiau was sentenced in Hamilton District Court.<\/p>\n

The woman had pulled over to answer her phone and, as she then continued to drive, she slowed to wait for a van, which Rikiau was in, pulling out of a driveway.<\/p>\n

The van stopped, Rikiau got out and approached the woman\u2019s vehicle. <\/p>\n

Rikiau asked if she was lost and began to yell at her. <\/p>\n

She then got back into the van and reversed towards the woman\u2019s car, but the woman managed to manoeuvre around Rikiau and drove to another property.<\/p>\n

When she arrived, Rikiau also pulled up.<\/p>\n

She approached the woman, yelling and accusing her of having been looking up her driveway, to which the woman tried to explain she hadn\u2019t been.<\/p>\n

Rikiau punched the woman in the nose and, as she tried to get back into her car, she grabbed a piercing on Rikiau\u2019s face in self-defence.<\/p>\n

Rikiau then ripped out a large chunk of the victim\u2019s hair and punched her five times.<\/p>\n

As the woman rang the police, Rikiau drove past her five times.<\/p>\n

The woman suffered concussion and bruising to her eye, arms and legs.<\/p>\n

Later offending by Rikiau led to her facing charges of speaking threateningly and using obscene language.<\/p>\n

\"AnnaAnna Rikiau, 35, had run out of a chances, a judge said. Photo \/ Belinda Feek<\/p>\n

On August 27 last year, Rikiau had approached her neighbour to ask if the woman had called the police about an incident that had occurred at Rikiau\u2019s home the previous day. <\/p>\n

When the woman confirmed she had, Rikiau told her to stay out of her business and not to call the police.<\/p>\n

The next day, Rikiau went back and accused the woman of looking at her house when she drove past, saying she did not appreciate it. <\/p>\n

The woman said, \u201cOkay,\u201d and closed her curtains.<\/p>\n

However, Rikiau then yelled that, if the woman wanted trouble, she would bring it, while calling her a slew of names, including a \u201cPakeha b****,\u201d a \u201cf****** cracker c***\u201d, and said \u201cf*** you, you white b****\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another assault charge related to an incident at a gym, where Rikiau \u201cmanhandled\u201d someone over a perceived \u201craruraru\u201d, or dispute.<\/p>\n

Rikiau also faced charges of theft, burglary and using a document after she stole two wallets from a staff area at the Claudelands Events Centre in August 2022, while working there as a contractor.<\/p>\n

One contained $150 cash, while the other was a Louis Vuitton wallet worth $1000.<\/p>\n

Rikiau spent $95.68 on a debit card and $180 on a Visa card from the wallets. <\/p>\n

Then, in November 2022, she went to Best Start childcare in Bader and stole two bankcards from a staff-only area before buying \u201cnumerous\u201d packets of cigarettes for a total of $361.77.<\/p>\n

She then visited two other stores and spent a further $321. <\/p>\n

In November 2023, Rikiau transferred the ownership of a vehicle into her name before selling it to a wrecker for $200.<\/p>\n

She also tried to steal $502 worth of groceries from Countdown Peachgrove Rd in May 2023, but was stopped by two members of the public.<\/p>\n

She told police she didn\u2019t have any money to pay for the groceries and needed to feed her children. <\/p>\n

Then, in February last year, she stole 12 bags of lollies from BP Connect Tristram St.<\/p>\n

After putting them in her car, she went back in and stole three Bluetooth speakers.<\/p>\n

The total haul was valued at $230.88.<\/p>\n

\u2018She presents now as a different person\u2019<\/p>\n

In court, McKenna said Rikiau had done a lot of work on herself, including engaging in counselling.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has been pretty proactive. She has stayed clean from drugs and offence-free for 10 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the fruits of her labour. She has identified the causes and done the mahi … and presents now as a different person.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s healthier and well spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that the trauma she had suffered had led to drug addiction, which in turn had led to the offending.<\/p>\n

While Judge Cocurullo accepted that, he remained pained by the numerous occasions she had reoffended while on bail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s somewhere between seven and nine occasions through the life of these charges where she was on bail and offended on bail,\u201d he told McKenna. <\/p>\n

But McKenna pushed for home detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we want [her] to stop offending, and if a home detention sentence, with the support that she has got in place, is going to stop her offending, then it should be the outcome,\u201d McKenna said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not here saying that this is okay, that this should be excused. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here saying we need to stop the cycle, and she\u2019s taken significant steps to stop the cycle … and we should support that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said the value of the dishonesty was significant, and so too were the assaults.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of them was particularly brutal that, frankly, broke the victim and still gives her grief this far on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the fact that, while on bail, you committed another assault at the gym, which saw you think that you were entitled to manhandle another individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was all set against the background of an \u201cextensive\u201d criminal history with numerous rehabilitative sentences to help Rikiau stop reoffending. <\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly to stop your entitlement to think that you could be violent to people as you would see fit,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

After taking a starting point of 33 months\u2019 imprisonment and applying various discounts, he jailed Rikiau for 25 months.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI would argue [she should] get as many as it takes,\u201d McKenna replied. But Judge Cocurullo disagreed. Rikiau…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9331,19340,26673,5845,9526,51247,1344,17094,79231,2082,2536,6288,14641,59919,6377,111,43,139,69,3373,8442,79229,79228,79230,107,1354],"class_list":["post-110506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chance","tag-abused","tag-abusing","tag-anna","tag-another","tag-assaulting","tag-attacked","tag-avoid","tag-clump","tag-for","tag-hair","tag-hamilton","tag-jailed","tag-motorist","tag-neighbour","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pleaded","tag-prison","tag-racially","tag-rikiau","tag-ripping","tag-then","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}