Victim\u2019s life \u2018significantly and harshly changed\u2019<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Catherine Harold submitted that while there was hope for some continued improvement through ongoing rehabilitation, the injuries had a significant impact on the victim\u2019s ability to engage in everyday activities.<\/p>\n
Judge Stephen Coyle agreed the victim\u2019s life had been \u201csignificantly and harshly changed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Maui was 20 years old when he decided to speed up, and drive into the back of a young male rival.<\/p>\n
Maui was charged with causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard, and also faced a further charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice, for his actions after the road incident.<\/p>\n
While the victim was being treated, Maui had, in the judge\u2019s words, \u201ctried to cover it all up\u201d, sending a text to his partner asking her to give him a false alibi.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d also texted a mate, asking him to fix his damaged car so he could sell it.<\/p>\n
But police caught up with Maui who, on July 1, was found hiding in another car at a Whakat\u0101ne address.<\/p>\n
Weighing on Judge Coyle\u2019s mind was whether, if the end sentence reached 24 months\u2019 imprisonment or lower, Maui should be sent to prison, or be given home detention.<\/p>\n
The Crown told the judge that even if he reached a sentence that fell within home detention territory, Maui should be sent to prison.<\/p>\n
His youth, and the positive changes he\u2019d made, needed to be weighed against principles of denunciation and deterrence, and the judge said the Crown was particularly concerned about the interests of the victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the fact that his life has been significantly and permanently changed for the worse because of your actions …\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Maui\u2019s lawyer, Caitlin Gentleman, while accepting the severe harm to the victim, advocated for a sentence of home detention.<\/p>\n
She told the judge that since the incident, which happened more than three years ago, Maui had stayed out of trouble and, before the incident, had never been in trouble.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d now changed his group of friends, become a father to two young children, was committed to his family, and had been \u201cdoing what he can to rehabilitate himself\u201d, Gentleman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we are now is a young man who has been leading an offence-free life, on the precipice of going to prison,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While the offending was serious, both Crown and defence accepted there had been no intent to cause the injuries that transpired.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that basis, and on the basis of the changes he has made and exemplified, it would be, in my submission, an unfortunate outcome for a young man in his position to go to prison,\u201d Gentleman said.<\/p>\n
The judge adopted a starting point of three-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment for the grievous bodily harm charge, and uplifted it by nine months for the perverting the course of justice charge.<\/p>\n
Maui was given a 25% discount for his guilty plea, a 15% discount for his personal circumstances outlined in a pre-sentence report, and a 15% for undue delays.<\/p>\n
Gentleman had, in an earlier hearing, sought a stay of proceedings which, though not granted, had brought to light failures in police disclosure that led to undue delays.<\/p>\n
Harold acknowledged these delays, and apologised on behalf of the Crown.<\/p>\n
With the discounts applied, the end sentence was 23 months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
\u2018Not the man you were four years ago\u2019<\/p>\n
The judge said the decision over whether to commute this to one of home detention had \u201ckept him up at night\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a case where someone has deliberately sped up and driven at someone who is walking away, and hits them, \u201cthe community rightly expects that should be dealt with severely and harshly by the courts\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, what \u201ctipped\u201d the decision for the judge was Maui\u2019s most recent pre-sentence report.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have stopped associating with the people in your life who were helping you make bad decisions,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are now surrounding yourself with wh\u0101nau who are helping you make good decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maui had told the report writer he was \u201cdevastated\u201d thinking about the victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, you are not the man today that you were four years ago and that is because you have made some significant changes,\u201d said Judge Coyle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I send you to jail today, those changes are at risk of unravelling …\u201d<\/p>\n
Maui was sentenced to 11 months\u2019 home detention, with six months\u2019 post-detention conditions, which included undertaking programmes as directed.<\/p>\n
Maui had offered to pay emotional harm reparation but the judge declined to order that, as given Maui\u2019s limited means, it would have to be drip-fed in small amounts to the victim, which could be offensive and \u201crub salt into the wound\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge concluded by telling him to remain motivated in the changes he\u2019d made, for the sake of his family, and to continue to make wise choices about his friends.<\/p>\n
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things started to resolve, as the AGKs started \u201cbacking off\u201d, but Maui arrived on the scene and didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,3246,3944,6186,20559,18478,14134,20556,15162,6097,20557,1345,78,3958,20558,6187,20555,20562,111,43,139,20554,2551,69,20560,1523,20561,9979,1041,5161,613,61,2240,17454,102,4741],"class_list":["post-19218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-both","tag-car","tag-changed","tag-contemplating","tag-course","tag-decision","tag-detention","tag-diss","tag-down","tag-hitting","tag-home","tag-in","tag-judge","tag-kept","tag-lives","tag-maui","tag-mens","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-ngamura","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-outcome","tag-over","tag-reckless","tag-right","tag-rival","tag-sentenced","tag-tiktok","tag-to","tag-whakatne","tag-whose","tag-with","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19218","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=19218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}