{"id":158221,"date":"2025-11-28T15:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158221\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T15:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:52:12","slug":"prison-officer-bashed-after-inmate-receives-news-his-mum-turipapa-tukere-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158221\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison officer bashed after inmate receives news his mum, Turipapa Tukere, died"},"content":{"rendered":"

His lawyer, Shelley Gilbert, argued her client was going through a traumatic time when he punched the prison officer before going on the run <\/a>for a month after being granted compassionate bail.<\/p>\n

While Judge Philip Crayton was sympathetic to Wilson\u2019s situation, he didn\u2019t issue as many discounts as the defence had hoped for.<\/p>\n

\u2018Punched twice to the jaw\u2019<\/p>\n

The fight in which Tukere lost her life erupted on Waipa Esplanade, near the intersection of Newton St, about 1.30pm on December 27.<\/p>\n

She died of her injuries before she could be airlifted to Waikato Hospital.<\/p>\n

Chalise Teira Barton-Barbarich, 34, has pleaded not guilty to Tukere\u2019s alleged murder and charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to an alleged second victim.<\/p>\n

Such was the tension between gangs after her death, police issued a Gang Conflict Warrant under the Criminal Activity Intervention Bill, which allowed them to make arrests and seize weapons.<\/p>\n

The following morning, Wilson was phoned in Spring Hill prison.<\/p>\n

After the call, he was to be put in a holding cell while other Corrections staff released other prisoners for their morning exercise.<\/p>\n

But Wilson became frustrated and told the prison officer that he wanted to be put in the compound.<\/p>\n

He was told he couldn\u2019t be, and as the victim turned away, Wilson punched him twice to the left side of his jaw, causing him to fall against the grill, then to the ground.<\/p>\n

He was then granted 27 hours\u2019 compassionate bail to attend his mother\u2019s tangi on River Rd, Ng\u0101ruaw\u0101hia, on December 30. <\/p>\n

Police contacted his cousin, whom he was required to always be in the presence of, the following day, but she said he wasn\u2019t with her.<\/p>\n

\"TuripapaTuripapa Tukere, 42. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

When they called a second time, he still wasn\u2019t with her. <\/p>\n

At 5.07pm, the prison called police saying he\u2019d failed to return.<\/p>\n

Wilson was eventually caught after a month on the run.<\/p>\n

He had been in custody at Spring Hill prison since August last year for an aggravated assault on a Pak\u2019n Save Hamilton staff member after trying to leave with $20 worth of stolen groceries in February and the aggravated robbery of a man at a shared Hamilton East car park in May.<\/p>\n

\u2018They were extraordinary circumstances\u2019<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s counsel, Shelley Gilbert, said a clinical psychologist\u2019s report gave the court a greater understanding of not only her client\u2019s background, but also the trauma he was facing at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that was, he was faced with the fact that his mother had just been killed. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s appreciated it\u2019s charged as a homicide, whether that comes out or not, but she was killed in tragic circumstances. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what was facing him at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were extraordinary circumstances for anyone, particularly a young man from his background.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said Wilson had a \u201cfairly traumatic upbringing\u201d and had suffered suspected neurological impairment due to the repetitive head injuries he sustained.<\/p>\n

Tests were carried out, which revealed he had triggers that drove his tendency to become aggressive \u201cvery quickly\u201d and was an \u201cissue that needs to be addressed\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

She submitted he was also now at a stage \u201cwhere he is perhaps open to receiving therapeutic intervention\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hopeful that moving forward, there can be some slightly brighter future for Mr Wilson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her client had also shown genuine remorse and taken responsibility for his offending.<\/p>\n

Given his childhood trauma, cognitive issues, remorse, and rehabilitative prospects, she pushed for 20% in discounts and pushed for an end jail term of around three years.<\/p>\n

\u2018He lacks any insight, doesn\u2019t have remorse\u2019<\/p>\n

But Crown prosecutor Lexie Glaser took issue with Wilson\u2019s remorse.<\/p>\n

She said pre-sentence reports showed Wilson shifting blame onto the victims.<\/p>\n

He claimed he had to protect his partner from the supermarket staff member as he was \u201ccoming towards\u201d her, and so he \u201chad to defend her\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe had to defend his partner from the shopworker trying to obtain the items that she was trying to steal,\u201d Glaser said.<\/p>\n

As for the other assault, Wilson also shifted blame, stating he was drunk and that the victim was a \u201clying cheat\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lacks any insight into his offending … and lacks any accountability for his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

She submitted Wilson\u2019s rehabilitative prospects, \u201care at an all-time low\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018It does not excuse it, but it does explain it\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton accepted that Wilson was \u201csignificantly emotionally affected by the unlawful killing of your mother\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not excuse your offending, but it does provide some explanation as to your acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough you were significantly distraught, you used violence in a clear and determined way against that prison officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

A clinical psychologist said his most prominent personality difficulty was in the area of \u201cdisinhibition\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, you do not feel restricted or inhibited in your violence or actions against other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as neither he nor the psychologist was a neurological expert, to attribute his actions to a possible head injury would be to engage in speculation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The reality was, he said, that there were many people in the community who didn\u2019t resort to violence or other type of offending. <\/p>\n

Wilson was jailed for three years and seven 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":"His lawyer, Shelley Gilbert, argued her client was going through a traumatic time when he punched the prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,104492,1558,6179,1872,33738,293,44161,3375,6178,2721,111,43,139,69,28703,10932,8442,105,14901,49478,104495,27517,1361,104494,104493,17251,20424],"class_list":["post-158221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-bashed","tag-been","tag-died","tag-face","tag-guard","tag-his","tag-inmate","tag-killed","tag-mother","tag-mum","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offending","tag-officer","tag-prison","tag-punched","tag-receives","tag-receiving","tag-remand","tag-robbery","tag-that","tag-tukere","tag-turipapa","tag-twice","tag-violent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158221","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=158221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}