{"id":76544,"date":"2025-10-13T22:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T22:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/76544\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T22:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T22:13:08","slug":"judge-spares-17-year-old-kava-peihopa-jail-over-violent-whangarei-kidnapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/76544\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge spares 17-year-old Kava Peihopa jail over violent Whang\u0101rei kidnapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Christmas Eve kidnapping<\/p>\n

On December 24 last year, the victim was travelling north when his phone went flat, leaving him lost.<\/p>\n

While parked on the roadside and trying to figure out his next move, Peihopa approached and asked the victim if he was okay.<\/p>\n

He said he was and Peihopa left.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, another man arrived and allegedly demanded to search the victim\u2019s vehicle, which he refused.<\/p>\n

In response, the man told the victim he was not leaving and allegedly blocked a nearby bridge with a vehicle.<\/p>\n

Peihopa then returned in his car with two others, all armed with steel bars.<\/p>\n

Police allege the man smashed the driver\u2019s window before the victim was dragged out of the car and beaten, leaving him so dazed that he struggled to stand.<\/p>\n

Peihopa took the victim\u2019s phone while one of the other people in the group allegedly demanded his PIN, which the victim gave.<\/p>\n

They forced the victim into Peihopa\u2019s car and drove around Whang\u0101rei,<\/a> demanding to know where he lived and worked.<\/p>\n

The victim told police it looked like one of the men had a gun but he was not sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was scared if he didn\u2019t do as you say so in four seconds, he\u2019d be shot,\u201d Judge Gus Andr\u0113e Wiltens <\/a>said.<\/p>\n

The group returned to the original location and got into the victim\u2019s car with the victim.<\/p>\n

They continued to drive around the city and made him buy alcohol, pies and cigarettes from a liquor store and service station. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe judge gave Peihopa a significant discount off his sentence. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

CCTV captured Peihopa with the victim inside the stores while the others waited in the car.<\/p>\n

The victim was eventually released in Raumanga<\/a> and drove straight to a petrol station to call police.<\/p>\n

Peihopa\u2019s lawyer, Jarrod Griffin, fought for a sentence of home detention, noting his client is only 17, with no criminal record and has completed several rehabilitation programmes since the offending.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am urging your honour to consider home detention for this young man in consideration of the crushing effect of a sentence of imprisonment and what that would mean for this young man,\u201d Griffin told the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a real shame if the outcome was a custodial one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown lawyer Ina Stewart acknowledged Peihopa\u2019s age and lesser role but argued he wasn\u2019t merely \u201calong for the ride\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been involved in the physical violence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Judge Andree Wiltens agreed imprisonment would be crushing and applied a significant discount to the starting point of five years and three months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m giving you a discount of 62 and a half per cent, which is enormous,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government of the day say I shouldn\u2019t do that \u2013 they passed legislation to make sure judges can\u2019t do that unless it\u2019s manifestly unjust.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in this situation, and bearing in mind your circumstances, I would say that is the case. Seventeen-year-olds don\u2019t deserve to be in jail really, unless it\u2019s absolutely imperative and it\u2019s not in your case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peihopa was sentenced to 12 months of home detention followed by 12 months of intensive release conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first 12 months is punitive and the next 12 months is designed to try and help you to make sure there\u2019s no repetition of this. I hope you take that.\u201d<\/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":"The Christmas Eve kidnapping On December 24 last year, the victim was travelling north when his phone went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[41814,42,1334,3958,59726,20925,43,1523,59727,59725,40,38,41,39,20424,1869],"class_list":["post-76544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-17yearold","tag-headlines","tag-jail","tag-judge","tag-kava","tag-kidnapping","tag-news","tag-over","tag-peihopa","tag-spares","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-violent","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76544","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=76544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}