Tautari carried a tomahawk while one of his co-offenders was allegedly armed with a sawn-off shotgun.<\/p>\n
The trio yelled at staff and customers to get on the ground and moved behind the counter.<\/p>\n
A shot was fired into the air while Tautari smashed glass cabinets. <\/p>\n
More than $12,000 of product, including 38 cellphones, and cash were taken from the store in the heist, and a staff member was also allegedly assaulted.<\/p>\n
The group fled, sparking a police manhunt.<\/p>\n
Tautari and two of his co-offenders were arrested more than two weeks later, on August 21.<\/p>\n
The Noel Leeming store in Waipapa that was robbed by three males in 2024. Photo \/ Google Maps<\/p>\n
Tautari was remanded into custody before being granted electronically monitored bail a year later, in September 2025.<\/p>\n
But when police arrived at his address for a bail check in December 2025, he fled, triggering another manhunt. He was caught in late January.<\/p>\n
At the sentencing hearing, Judge Brandt Shortland reflected on an earlier court hearing with Tautari at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can appreciate when we came originally to sentence, you would\u2019ve got the wiri wiris [shakes],\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were told to make sure you\u2019re prepared, and you probably responded with your wae waes [legs]. But here we are \u2013 this is big boys\u2019 stuff now, serious stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tautari\u2019s associates remain at various stages of the court, which Judge Shortland remarked, \u201cThose other fullas will face their own music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Chris Muston said the reality of the situation had finally hit his client.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not a very happy chap today \u2026 he\u2019s selfishly tried to dodge the bullet but, nevertheless, here he is,\u201d Muston said.<\/p>\n
Judge Shortland said the robbery created a frightening situation that could easily have ended in tragedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn New Zealand history, some people have died as a result of things that were planned like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tautari told pre-sentence report writers he acted because he was bored, angry and \u201csick of being p\u014dhara [poor]\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you needed money for food and drugs and you were upfront about that,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, you\u2019ve had time to think about things and you\u2019ve realised \u2013 not a good choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted Tautari was 21 at the time, \u201cbut not 21 in the head\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I say to you now, Mr Tautari, is I really hope for you, your wh\u0101nau, your aunties, your nans, that you absolutely learn from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tautari was sentenced to three years and one month in prison and will go before the Parole Board for release.<\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tautari carried a tomahawk while one of his co-offenders was allegedly armed with a sawn-off shotgun. The trio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,795,14641,88854,111,139,87400,69,90,11923,213,176429,64796,38958],"class_list":["post-327637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-bruce","tag-jailed","tag-leeming","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-noel","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-raid","tag-sports","tag-tautari","tag-tomahawk","tag-waipapa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327637","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=327637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}