{"id":234020,"date":"2026-01-15T04:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T04:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234020\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T04:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T04:50:18","slug":"he-lost-his-spark-for-life-benjamin-timmins-sister-speaks-out-after-waitarere-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234020\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He lost his spark for life’: Benjamin Timmins’ sister speaks out after Wait\u0101rere shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"One<\/p>\n

\nThe scene of the shooting on Wednesday.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

The sister of a man who died after a shooting in Wait\u0101rere Beach in Horowhenua says her brother is more than just his criminal history.<\/p>\n

\"Rach<\/p>\n

\nRach O’Grady and Benjamin Harry Timmins in photos taken in 1986 and 2025.
\nPhoto: Facebook\/ Rach O’Grady\n<\/p>\n

A 46-year-old woman and two males aged 17 and 21 – remain critically wounded in Wellington Hospital<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

A young girl who was at the scene of the shooting on Wednesday is being cared for by family.<\/p>\n

Police are not looking for anyone else.<\/p>\n

Rach O’Grady has identified her older brother, Benjamin Harry Timmins, 60, as the deceased, calling him a “loved friend, father, and brother. Trickster, funny fella, all round solid gold”.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RNZ on Thursday, she said she understood her brother’s body was being removed from the house on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In life, she remembered him as funny, intelligent, a staunch protector and sometimes strict parent.<\/p>\n

In his 20s he joined the Territorial Force – now known as the Army Reserve Force – “to keep people safe, to protect, to ensure that he had a purpose in his life”, she said.<\/p>\n

In more recent years his work had been caring for his children and working on the farm on Wait\u0101rere Beach Road, which had cows, sheep and horses, and a cattery in which they bred Ragdolls.<\/p>\n

“He was a carer,” O’Grady said.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s events did not reflect the brother she knew, she said, and had left the family asking, “What happened to him?”<\/p>\n

Amid speculation online, she wanted to make clear he did not have gang affiliations, and she was worried his past brushes with the law on cannabis and firearms offences painted a picture of a different person to the man she knew.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Timmins was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm, and then convicted again in 2019, on three charges of cultivation of cannabis, unlawful possession of ammunition and theft.<\/p>\n

An appeal in 2024 was partly successful, with the conviction for unlawful possession of ammunition set aside.<\/p>\n

This morning, RNZ reported police seized a dismantled a gun, parts and ammunition<\/a> from the property a few hours before returning to find a Timmins dead and three others with gunshot wounds.<\/p>\n

\"Benjamin<\/p>\n

\nBenjamin Timmins
\nPhoto: Supplied\n<\/p>\n

Police also this morning confirmed they responded to a family harm-related incident at the property last Friday. One person was arrested and charged with assault on a person in a family relationship and had been scheduled to appear in court on 14 January.<\/p>\n

The most recent events at the house were a failing of the mental health system, O’Grady said.<\/p>\n

Her brother had changed in the past few years, becoming “quiet, withdrawn. He lost his spark for life”.<\/p>\n

“Men’s mental health should never be ignored, because when a man breaks, it’s not just the man who breaks, it’s his families, the family he comes from, the family he’s created. Men’s mental health has been so ignored.”<\/p>\n

She had last seen her brother at the weekend, and had spoken to him on the phone that night. She said one of his last comments to her was: “Make sure my story gets out.”<\/p>\n

The family still had questions about what exactly had happened, and she hoped the police investigation would bring those answers.<\/p>\n

“Ben is not the person that he is going to be portrayed as. He is not his criminal history.”<\/p>\n

Manawat\u016b area commander Inspector Ross Grantham said the scene examination could extend into the weekend.<\/p>\n

“We will continue to guard the scene and the public within the community can expect to see a more heavy police presence there than they normally would,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s like most small communities in New Zealand, everybody knows everybody or somebody knows somebody and so it will have a very wide impact on that community and the community within the Horowhenua.”<\/p>\n

Police were not seeking anyone else.<\/p>\n

“Family harm is a very wide spectrum and if this is indeed family harm, then it is most certainly at the top end of that spectrum,” he said. “That is terribly, terribly sad.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scene of the shooting on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ\/Mark Papalii The sister of a man who died after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-234020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234020","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=234020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}