\u2018Stand back or get whacked\u2019<\/p>\n
Ngamo was charged with manslaughter in November 2023, six months after a boy racer gathering at an East T\u0101maki, South Auckland, intersection attracted about 50 to 100 spectators after it was advertised on social media. <\/p>\n
His unregistered blue Holden Commodore would not have passed a warrant of fitness inspection and he was disqualified from driving because of previous traffic violations. That didn\u2019t stop him from doing burnouts in tandem with another vehicle as the crowd spilt into the roadway. <\/p>\n
The victim, 17, recalled being surged forward by the crowd before she was hit in the torso by Ngamo\u2019s car and sent airborne. Her infant died less than 24 hours later because of the catastrophic head injury suffered in utero.<\/p>\n
Skid marks are visible via Google Maps at the intersection of Bruce Roderick and Offenhauser Drives in East T\u0101maki where an illegal boy racer gathering in May 2023 resulted in a pregnant teen getting hit and losing her baby. Photo \/ Google<\/p>\n
Ngamo later posted a video of the incident on his Instagram account with the caption: \u201cstand the f*** back or get whacked\u201d.<\/p>\n
He later took down the post after learning of the baby\u2019s death but then posted a warning on a different social media account: \u201cTo the people that got hit on the weekend keep these indoors and sort it cause if the pigs come to mine for that I\u2019ll come to yours and smoke you end of\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a victim impact statement read aloud at Ngamo\u2019s sentencing last year, the teen acknowledged she should not have attended the event and emphasised that she \u201cnever once\u201d blamed the defendant. <\/p>\n
Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith, however, was not so forgiving. She described the victim\u2019s statement as very generous but wrong in placing the blame on herself.<\/p>\n
Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith. Photo \/ Bevan Conley<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public are very concerned about this type of behaviour, and they have a right to be,\u201d the judge said, adding that boy racers \u201cneed to understand the risk they take and the consequences that follow\u201d.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Amy Jordan had argued that being charged with manslaughter was enough of a deterrent, but the judge disagreed. The sentence needed had to have \u201cteeth\u201d to be a deterrent and that involved prison time, she said. <\/p>\n
Another life changed<\/p>\n
What was not discussed at the July sentencing, and could not yet be reported by the media, was that Ngamo had been arrested for new charges in March last year. <\/p>\n
The new charges prevented the media from immediately naming Ngamo after he lost his bid for permanent suppression. <\/p>\n
According to the agreed summary of facts for his latest charges, Ngamo was riding a stolen electric bicycle through St Johns about 7am on March 25 last year when he entered the victim\u2019s enclosed yard and looked inside her open bathroom window. <\/p>\n
Micheal Ngamo, who hit a pregnant teen while doing burnouts, causing the teen to lose her baby, appears in the High Court at Auckland in July 2025. He has recently lost name suppression after resolving an unrelated matter in Auckland District Court. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
The victim had just gotten out of the shower and Ngamo held his phone inside the window to record her. She caught him in the act. <\/p>\n
\u201cMr Ngamo fled on foot, tripped and then escaped on the stolen e-bike,\u201d court documents state. <\/p>\n
When police later searched his home, he refused to give them the access code for his phone, resulting in another charge. He denied the offending, telling police he had been in the neighbourhood to visit a bakery. <\/p>\n
Finding a stranger at her window that morning rattled her to the core, the woman told Ngamo in a victim impact statement last week. She travelled to the hearing from Australia so that she could be heard. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt shattered my sense of safety, stability and trust in the world around me,\u201d she said, describing a feeling of vulnerability in what \u201cshould have been the safest and most private place in my life\u201d. <\/p>\n
Before the offending, she led a happy, stable and independent life in New Zealand, she said. But after the incident she was too afraid to return to her home, she said, explaining she could neither relax nor sleep there as the incident repeatedly played over in her memory. <\/p>\n
Having to move suddenly was \u201cdeeply destabilising\u201d, she said, explaining it also put a strain on her relationship, caused her to withdraw from friends and contributed to her leaving her job. <\/p>\n
Eventually, she said, she returned home to Australia for a fresh start after having previously felt permanently settled in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis offence uprooted my entire life, and some days I no longer recognise the person I\u2019ve become,\u201d she said. \u201cI question whether I will ever truly feel safe again. In many ways, I feel like I\u2019ve lost the person I used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Bad headspace\u2019<\/p>\n
Ngamo faced up to three years\u2019 imprisonment for the charge of making an intimate visual recording and up to seven years\u2019 imprisonment for receiving the stolen bicycle, worth $5000, and a $2700 stolen generator.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Alex Slipper sought substantial reductions for his client, including a 15% discount for his guilty plea even though it was so close to trial that the victim had already flown in from Australia to give evidence. <\/p>\n
Ngamo had always considered pleading guilty but it came late in the process, Slipper said, because his client was embarrassed to talk about his offending in front of a female communications assistant. <\/p>\n
Slipper also sought discounts of 20% for his background and 5% for remorse. It\u2019s agreed by all parties that his childhood would have been \u201cawful for anyone to endure\u201d, Slipper said, noting that Ngamo\u2019s father had been in prison and he didn\u2019t have a relationship with his mother. In addition, he said, the defendant suffered intellectual disabilities. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe fully accepts what he did was very wrong,\u201d Slipper said. \u201cIt occurred at a time he was under great stress, awaiting the sentencing for that manslaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ngamo told authorities he had been living at a boarding house at the time and had been introduced to methamphetamine by housemates. Now knowing how the drug affects him, he has no intention of using it again, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time I was in very bad headspace,\u201d Ngamo wrote in his apology letter. \u201cIt really hurts me knowing what you have been going through because of my actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defendant insisted he deleted the video of the victim immediately after she noticed him. <\/p>\n
His lawyer came to court with the passcode for his phone so police and the victim can have reassurance he\u2019s telling the truth, he said. <\/p>\n
Judge Simon Lance outside Rotorua District Court in 2012, before he was appointed to the bench. Photo \/ Christine Cornege<\/p>\n
The judge agreed with Crown prosecutor Samara Wakefield that Ngamo\u2019s discounts should be tempered, especially for his last-minute guilty plea. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be no doubt that [the victim] has been profoundly affected by the offending,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is an effect that has been ongoing. As you heard her say … this has changed her life in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge set a starting point of 12 months for the Peeping Tom charge before adding eight months for receiving stolen property. <\/p>\n
He then allowed 35% in total discounts for his guilty plea, his background and remorse before adding another month for having been on bail for the manslaughter charge when the new crimes occurred. <\/p>\n
It would have resulted in a sentence of 14 months\u2019 imprisonment, but Judge Lance settled on nine months instead after taking into account the sentence Ngamo is already serving. <\/p>\n
That is what he believed the High Court judge would have increased the sentence by had Ngamo been sentenced for all charges at once. <\/p>\n
Because Ngamo was already in prison, the sentence will have to be served consecutively rather than concurrently. <\/p>\n