{"id":160726,"date":"2025-11-30T05:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T05:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/160726\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T05:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T05:17:06","slug":"raglan-road-rage-couple-sentenced-over-brutal-attack-on-teens-after-bridge-stand-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/160726\/","title":{"rendered":"Raglan road-rage couple sentenced over brutal attack on teens after bridge stand-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Crayton said it was pure \u201cluck\u201d that nobody died <\/a>that night.<\/p>\n

\u2018Get f*****, I\u2019m not moving\u2019<\/p>\n

The somewhat unusual incident began after the group of teenagers decided to drive to the Ngarunui Beach lookout at 9.30pm on Friday, August 9, last year.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Rehua-Whare, 27, was heading to pick her partner up from Primrose St.<\/p>\n

After the victims got a third of the way along the bridge, Rehua-Whare drove her Toyota on to the bridge from the southwest, ignoring the give-way rule.<\/p>\n

Both vehicles stopped in the middle of the bridge.<\/p>\n

Two of the victims, who were in the backseat, got out of the car to talk with Rehua-Whare about who had the right of way, and asked her to reverse off.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet f*****, I\u2019m not moving,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

One of the victims said they were legally in the right, but she replied, \u201cGet f*****, you don\u2019t know who you are messing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The argument was witnessed by a person walking on the bridge, who also told Rehua-Whare to reverse off the bridge. <\/p>\n

Rehua-Whare refused, forcing the victims instead to reverse off the bridge, along with other road users.<\/p>\n

She then drove off the bridge, and the victims headed to the Ngarunui Beach car park.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think I\u2019ve found them\u2019<\/p>\n

Shortly afterwards, Rehua-Whare arrived and parked behind the victims\u2019 car before leaving again.<\/p>\n

At 9.42pm, she sent a series of texts to her partner saying, \u201cI think I\u2019ve found them\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m at the reserve\u201d.<\/p>\n

Having seen the same vehicle, and with the main gate to the car park being due to close, the victims became concerned and decided to leave.<\/p>\n

However, by the time they got to the gate it was shut and Rehua-Whare was parked in such a way that it blocked them from leaving.<\/p>\n

The victims got out of their car and had another chat with Rehua-Whare, who told them they had to stay there until morning.<\/p>\n

They then tried to drive through the gate after unwrapping a chain, but Rehua-Whare cut off their path using her vehicle and forced them on to the grass verge.<\/p>\n

The victims drove around the corner on to Ngarunui Beach Rd only to find their way blocked by another vehicle. Rehua-Whare drove up behind them.<\/p>\n

Three large men got out of the second car, including Barber-Salvation, who approached them aggressively before hitting the bonnet of the vehicle with his fist and yelling something.<\/p>\n

He opened the driver\u2019s door and asked, \u201cAre you the ones on the one-way bridge?\u201d before punching the driver with a closed fist.<\/p>\n

The victim lost consciousness, causing him to slump forward in the car, which then started rolling forward down the hill.<\/p>\n

\"RaglanRaglan woman Te Hina Rehua-Whare, 27, refused to reverse off the one-lane Wainui Rd bridge despite being in the wrong. Image \/ Google maps<\/p>\n

However, Barber-Salvation kept hitting him on the back of the head, as a rear-seat passenger yelled at him to stop because he had a previous head injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give a f***,\u201d Barber-Salvation replied, and as he continued punching the victim.<\/p>\n

Barber-Salvation then demanded that another victim get out. He complied, putting his hands up, and was punched in the back of the head.<\/p>\n

After walking him over to his partner to apologise, Barber-Salvation punched him to the jaw, causing the victim to fall down a bank.<\/p>\n

Rehua-Whare then told her partner the victims had a video recording of the earlier incident, so Barber-Salvation walked a victim back to his car and demanded he delete it.<\/p>\n

At this time, one of the unknown men opened a car door and punched another victim multiple times in the face and head, while the other opened the other door, and said, \u201cWho do you think you are doing this shit in our town?\u201d<\/p>\n

He then demanded \u201call your cash, drugs, everything\u201d, before throwing a bottle of soft drink at him, and saying, \u201cI will teach you not to do that shit around here\u201d, and bashing him more than 10 times.<\/p>\n

He then held the roof and kicked and stomped the teen victim multiple times. The victim eventually lost his vision.<\/p>\n

As Barber-Salvation left, he returned to the driver\u2019s door and said, \u201cIf any of you tell the police, I will find you and kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victims were too scared to call police, but a concerned mother rang them the following day.<\/p>\n

The victims suffered multiple injuries, including concussion, a broken eye socket, bruising, and pain.<\/p>\n

When spoken to by police, Rehua-Whare said she was \u201cin a mood\u201d before she left home that night and admitted refusing to move off the bridge, but denied any involvement in the attack.<\/p>\n

\u2018She should have let it go\u2019<\/p>\n

Rehua-Whare\u2019s counsel, Mark Sturm, said his client had struggled to accept some of the charges because she didn\u2019t take part in any of the violence.<\/p>\n

However, he had explained her role in the bridge confrontation and then texting her partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe does contend that the young victims were a little more confrontational than the prosecution presented its case but be that as it may … the reality is, the defendant as the older person … had the option of just letting it go and moving on and she didn\u2019t and that\u2019s led to the charges that she faces and indeed charges that her partner faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither his client nor Barber-Salvation had appeared in court before.<\/p>\n

Sturm said her offending \u201cappears to be an aberration, out of character\u201d.<\/p>\n

She was highly thought of not just by her work colleagues and wh\u0101nau but the wider community, he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018It should have been a non-event\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton accepted that, were it not for his partner, Barber-Salvation would never have got involved.<\/p>\n

On charges of injuring with intent to injure, assault with intent to injure, threatening to kill, and intentional damage, he was sentenced to 11 months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n

Barber-Salvation also offered $8000 in emotional harm reparation, which the judge ordered be paid.<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton said Rehua-Whare put herself \u201cin a situation where you couldn\u2019t take a breath\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what should have been a non-event became a nuclear option.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only fortune … is that nobody died.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those young men had a significant head injury. It\u2019s luck that he didn\u2019t die; another one was knocked unconscious.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was sentenced to nine months\u2019 home detention.<\/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":"Judge Crayton said it was pure \u201cluck\u201d that nobody died that night. \u2018Get f*****, I\u2019m not moving\u2019 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,89,1565,110,8414,209,31144,13505,440,111,43,139,69,90,105773,105770,1523,8693,105771,105769,105772,5161,37136,47066,672,6699,1354],"class_list":["post-160726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-attack","tag-bridge","tag-brutal","tag-couple","tag-group","tag-horrific","tag-interaction","tag-local","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-onelane","tag-orchestrated","tag-over","tag-raglan","tag-righteous","tag-roadrage","tag-seaside","tag-sentenced","tag-standoff","tag-teenagers","tag-teens","tag-towns","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160726","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=160726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}