{"id":363180,"date":"2026-04-04T08:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363180\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T08:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:26:09","slug":"mt-wellington-stabbing-judge-jails-woman-for-bloody-scissors-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363180\/","title":{"rendered":"Mt Wellington stabbing: Judge jails woman for bloody scissors attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis was a serious stab wound and you effectively followed [her],\u201d Judge Stephen Bonnar said as he ordered two years\u2019 imprisonment for the defendant. <\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice cordon a street in Mount Wellington on May 8, 2025, after Hinekura Tuhakaraina stabbed a woman in the leg. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n

He added that he had sympathy for the situation Tuhakarina found herself in when she had been the victim days earlier. But it didn\u2019t excuse her behaviour, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou appeared somewhat indifferent to your offending,\u201d he said, noting a \u201clack of empathy\u201d during an interview with authorities she gave prior to her sentencing. \u201cThere was an element of victim blaming or minimisation of your behaviour.\u201d <\/p>\n

Court documents state Tuhakaraina, who is from Timaru, had recently started staying with family in Auckland and had recently met the victim through Tuhakaraina\u2018s sister. <\/p>\n

Around 1pm that day, the victim had been visiting Tuhakaraina\u2018s sister at the same address when she and the defendant got into an intense verbal argument. That spat didn\u2019t result in violence, however. The victim left the home and Tuhakaraina went to her room, where she \u201cconsumed copious amounts of alcohol\u201d, according to the agreed summary of facts. <\/p>\n

The victim returned about eight hours later looking for the defendant\u2019s sister, but she wasn\u2019t home. The argument resumed and Tuhakaraina ordered the woman to leave. <\/p>\n

\"JudgeJudge Stephen Bonnar. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray<\/p>\n

\u201cMs Tuhakaraina\u2018s mother at the front door observed the argument to be about [the victim\u2019s] brother that had recently assaulted Ms Tuhakaraina,\u201d court documents state, adding that Tuhakaraina had a cut lip and swollen face.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou deserved to be donged,\u201d the defendant\u2019s mother recalled the victim saying before she left. <\/p>\n

Tuhakaraina began running after her as the victim walked towards a waiting car. She swung at the victim but missed, at which point the victim noticed something sharp in her hands. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to kill you, bitch,\u201d the defendant told her. <\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice cordons have been removed at a Mount Wellington residential intersection where a person was taken to Auckland City Hospital with a serious stab injury in May 2025. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

The argument quickly escalated from there, to the point where Tuhakaraina openly brandished a pair of scissors and started chasing after the victim until eventually she tripped. The defendant then stabbed her in the thigh, causing a deep wound. <\/p>\n

A bystander who recognised both women got between them with his bicycle. <\/p>\n

\u201cMs Tuhakaraina continued enraged stabbing motions … despite missing on each occasion,\u201d court documents state. Police arrived shortly thereafter, arresting Tuhakaraina and applying a tourniquet to the victim\u2019s leg to stop the bleeding. <\/p>\n

The victim did not appear in court last week, nor did she provide an impact statement. <\/p>\n

Although Tuhakaraina had never been sentenced to prison before, she had been convicted for 51 other offences between 2010 and 2025, the judge noted, describing just over half of the convictions as violent or \u201cquasi-violent\u201d offending. <\/p>\n

\"HinekuraHinekura Tuhakaraina appeared for sentencing in the Auckland District Court via audio-video feed after pleading guilty to stabbing another woman with a pair of scissors. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n

They included a wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm conviction in 2021, assault with a weapon in 2018, six counts of assaulting police on various occasions, and a threatening to kill conviction in February last year. <\/p>\n

A probation officer who interviewed her was \u201crightly concerned\u201d that the violence seemed to be escalating, the judge noted. <\/p>\n

Had it not been for her prior offences, Judge Bonnar said he would have ordered a sentence of less than two years. <\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Mohammed Chiraagh noted that there wasn\u2019t a suitable home detention address for Tuhakaraina, so a non-custodial sentence wasn\u2019t an option. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the level of violence for this offending, imprisonment ought to be the end outcome,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice cordon off a street in Mount Wellington in May 2025 after Hinekura Tuhakaraina stabbed a woman in the leg. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Johann Schlebusch insisted that his client was remorseful and had hoped for a restorative justice conference. He noted that she came from a \u201ctraumatic and difficult\u201d background that included fostercare as a child, an early introduction to drugs and alcohol and troubled relationships. <\/p>\n

While the judge sided with the Crown, ordering prison, he also allowed the defence leave to return to court with a request for home detention if a suitable residence is found. However, that issue was likely to be academic, he added. <\/p>\n

Because Tuhakaraina had been remanded in jail since May awaiting the outcome of the stabbing charge, she should be up for release on parole in just over a month, the judge noted. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis was a serious stab wound and you effectively followed [her],\u201d Judge Stephen Bonnar said as he ordered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7818,32034,89,73936,14796,11559,177436,2082,191020,27343,3958,5836,10048,111,43,139,69,191019,27886,15163,1361,6859,191021,52,1316,1354],"class_list":{"0":"post-363180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-allegedly","9":"tag-assaulted","10":"tag-attack","11":"tag-battered","12":"tag-beating","13":"tag-bloody","14":"tag-deserved","15":"tag-for","16":"tag-hinekura","17":"tag-jails","18":"tag-judge","19":"tag-lost","20":"tag-mt","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-scissors","26":"tag-sister","27":"tag-stabbing","28":"tag-that","29":"tag-told","30":"tag-tuhakaraina","31":"tag-wellington","32":"tag-when","33":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363180","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=363180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}