R v Te Awa [2014] NZHC 65 (5 February 2014)

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R v Te Awa [2014] NZHC 65 (5 February 2014)

Last Updated: 5 February 2014

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

CRI-2012-055-04249

CRI-2013-055-00700 [2014] NZHC 65

THE QUEEN

v

PARAIRE HORI TAMA WEHI TE AWA DEAN MICHAEL ADDISON

Hearing: 5 February 2014

Appearances: K Raftery and A Pollett for Crown

PJ Kaye for Te Awa

M Ryan and B Meyer for Addison

Sentence: 5 February 2014

_{SENTENCING NOTES OF TOOGOOD J}

R v TE AWA & ADDISON [2014] NZHC 65 [5 February 2014]

[1] Paraire Hori Tama Wehi Te Awa, you appear for sentence having been convicted by a jury of kidnapping and murder. Dean Michael Addison, you are for sentence for kidnapping and also on one count of supplying methamphetamine and also on one count of possessing pseudoephedrine for the purpose of manufacture.

Background facts

Dean Addison

[2] In June 2012, Mr Addison, you were dealing at and just above street level in methamphetamine. I am satisfied that your conviction by the jury on the count of supplying methamphetamine was genuinely representative of significant dealing activity. It is clear from the text messages involving you that you were dealing in drugs, and by that I mean drugs like methamphetamine and pseudoephedrine, on a regular basis. That was confirmed by the Crown’s principal witness, Mr Rigby, who was your runner. Other witnesses gave evidence of the many people who called at your work place in Papakura to purchase methamphetamine. I consider it well established, therefore, that you were dealing commercially in methamphetamine, albeit at a retail rather than wholesale level.

[3] I am satisfied also that you were involved in receiving pseudoephedrine for manufacture and that the one incident of possession relied upon by the Crown was not an isolated incident. As Mr Raftery submitted to the jury at the time of your trial, the evidence established that you were in possession of pseudoephedrine on at least two other occasions in June and July 2012.

[4] As is so often the case, however, your drug dealing got you into financial strife. You had received from your wife’s best friend, Rae Portman, a set of ContacNT containing pseudoephedrine valued at $9,000. It was intended by Ms Portman and you that the pseudoephedrine would be turned into methamphetamine from which Ms Portman was due to receive $14,000, thereby giving her a profit of $5,000. No doubt you would have benefited also in the transaction, probably by receiving a quantity of methamphetamine which you could then sell.

[5] For reasons which were not disclosed at your trial, Ms Portman began pressuring you, on 16 June 2012, to either return the pseudoephedrine to her or pay her the $14,000 she was expecting to receive. I should say at this point that I disregard for the purposes of sentencing Mr Te Awa, the suggestion in your pre- sentence report that you had in fact given the drugs to him. You did not have the drugs or the money, and the text messages between your wife and you provided clear evidence of the extreme pressure Ms Portman’s demands put you under. No doubt she also was under considerable pressure from associates who expected to benefit in the transaction.

[6] Your response to the pressure was, first, to attempt avoid contact with Ms Portman and then by 20 June to engage Mr Te Awa to teach her a lesson. The evidence went no further than establishing that you had arranged for Ms Portman to be kidnapped and taken to a remote area where she was to be released to find her way home. I am required to sentence you on that basis.

Paraire Te Awa

[7] Mr Te Awa, I accept that there was no evidence at trial that you were directly involved in handling illegal drugs, apart from being a user of methamphetamine and cannabis. I am satisfied from the evidence, however, that you supported Mr Addison in his drug dealing by threatened and inflicted violence on others when called upon. I accept the evidence of Lee Rigby that you issued a serious threat to him which ensured his participation in the kidnapping. Your subsequent actions in relation to Ms Portman proved that you had both the means and the intention to carry out any such threat so far as Mr Rigby was concerned.

[8] You carried out Mr Addison’s instructions to kidnap Ms Portman with ruthless efficiency. She was a slightly built 32-year-old who was four months’ pregnant. You bound her hands and ankles tightly together behind her with insulation tape, in a manner which the pathologist described as “hog-tied”. You also wound tape tightly around her head covering her mouth. You then placed a drop sheet around her head and taped that into place also.

[9] With Mr Rigby’s assistance, you placed Ms Portman into the back of her Mazda Astina. You then ensured that she was transported to the Waikato, in a small space between the upright back seat and the rear hatch in a concertinaed position. The pathologist described how the confined space, the bent position of the body, the pregnancy, the sheet over her head, and the gag across her mouth would have combined to make breathing difficult for Ms Portman. Added to those factors, the fear and stress she must have suffered over the last five hours of her life would have been unbearable, particularly at times when you stopped on the journey and she would have been apprehensive as to what was to happen to her and her unborn baby. During at least one of these stops, you handled her roughly, pushing her back down into the car when she was crying and struggling to sit up.

[10] I am satisfied on the evidence that you planned to kill Ms Portman from the time you bound and gagged and covered her in the drop sheet at Markedo Place, Papakura. Had it been your intention at that time merely to abduct her and release her in a remote area, “as a lesson to her”, it would not have been necessary for you to go to such extremes. I accept Mr Rigby’s evidence that on several occasions during the journey from Auckland to the Waikato, you assured Ms Portman she should not worry and that it would all be over soon. You were not telling her that that she would soon be released; the evidence that you obtained an axe from the Reids’ property at Ngaruawahia which you visited shortly before the murder helped to prove that you planned to kill her. There was no evidence during the trial of any event that might have caused you to change an initial plan of simple kidnapping to one of murder.

[11] I also accept as true Mr Rigby’s evidence that you directed him to take Ms Portman to a remote spot; that you pulled Ms Portman up into a sitting position in the back of the car, placed a motorcycle strop around her neck and, using a car door handle to twist the noose, garrotted her to death. Afterwards, you showed no emotion.

[12] Mr Rigby’s description of the methodical, unemotional and determined way in which you ended Ms Portman’s life was chilling.

[13] You then instructed Mr Rigby to transport Ms Portman’s body back to Ngaruawahia where it was left for several hours while you both returned to Auckland. I am satisfied that you returned to Ngaruawahia later that day, transferred Ms Portman’s body from the Mazda into your own vehicle, and then transported her to a farm near Clevedon where you concealed her body in other fabric and a blue synthetic pool liner. The body was then left there for several days – seen on one occasion by Mr Drawbridge - until you ultimately buried it in a farm pit, covered with rubbish bags. It remained there undiscovered for more than three months.

Purposes and principles of sentencing

[14] In determining the appropriate sentences I keep in mind the purposes and principles of sentencing prescribed by Parliament.¹

[15] The purposes of particular relevance to this case are: holding you both accountable for the harm done to your victims and to the community; promoting in you a sense of responsibility for, and an acknowledgment of, that harm; denouncing your conduct; deterring others from similar offending; and, especially in your case Mr Te Awa, protecting the community from you.

[16] The principles that to my mind are most relevant are the need to take into account the gravity of this offending and the degree of culpability of each of you; the seriousness of the type of offending involved; recognition of the maximum penalties prescribed for these offences; and, as urged by defence counsel, particularly Mr Kaye, the obligation to impose the least restrictive outcome that is appropriate in the circumstances. There are always victims in cases of drug dealing but in respect of the kidnapping and murder I am bound particularly to take into account the effect of your offending on others.

[17] I accept that Ms Portman did not suffer any violent injury during the kidnapping but she was forced to endure a terrifying ordeal over several hours. She and her unborn child lost their lives at your hands Mr Te Awa, but they were not the

_{only victims in this case.}

¹ Sentencing Act 2002, ss 7 and 8.

Victim impact statement

[18] You have heard the victim impact statement read by Ms Portman’s mother, Rebecca Norton. She spoke of the terrible pain your offending has caused her, Mr Te Awa. You deprived her of her only daughter – and of her first grandchild – and she did not know what had happened to Rae for over three months because you concealed your crime. And you concealed it also, Mr Addison, once you became aware of what had happened. Ms Norton said she felt violated by your presence in her home at the time of Rae’s funeral when she later discovered you played a part in the events leading to her daughter’s death. Ms Norton says the task of delivering the news of her daughter’s murder to the rest of her family, particularly Ms Portman’s elderly grandmother, was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. She has suffered from post-traumatic stress and needs medication to sleep. She says her psychological difficulties led to her losing her job, causing her financial stress.

[19] I have also received a victim impact statement from Mr Portman, Rae’s father. He also has suffered severe depression and loss of confidence as a result of his daughter’s death, and has suffered emotionally in other ways. He describes also the devastating emotional effect on the whole family including Rae’s siblings. Both Mr Portman and Ms Norton describe Rae in glowing terms, mindful of her weaknesses. Notwithstanding her failings they talk about her as having a bubbly magnetic personally and it is clear that the entire family has been shattered by the senseless loss of her life.

Personal circumstances

Dean Addison

[20] Mr Addison, you are 36 years old. For present purposes, I disregard your previous history of minor offending but you certainly have no good character which needs to be taken into account here. At the time of these offences you were living in Papakura with your wife of eight years and you say you still have her support. You have a teenage son from a previous relationship. You have reported a stable employment history throughout your adult life, first in landscaping and for the last

nine years as a high-pressure hydraulics engineer. You started your own company four years ago.

[21] But you have been assessed as having a very harmful pattern of drug abuse. You have admitted that over the period of your offending you were smoking cannabis daily and methamphetamine two or three times a week, but you claim that you are a social user rather than an addict.

[22] You continue to distance yourself from your role in what happened to Ms Portman, blaming Mr Rigby for “pinning” this on you. The report writer says there is a low likelihood of your reoffending, but this assessment is conditional on your addressing your drug abuse, which you are said to be motivated to do.

Paraire Te Awa

[23] Mr Te Awa, you are 33 years old. You have many previous convictions including several for sexual offences involving minors, but only one other conviction for violence, for which you received a sentence of 23 months’ imprisonment in July 2013.

[24] You refused to take part in the pre-sentence report process for this sentencing, including refusing to co-operate with a psychologist who had been asked to prepare a report. However, I have read the pre-sentence report prepared in June last year in respect of your convictions for assault and burglary. It says you were not remorseful about those offences either, but you claimed not to be a violent person. You had the support of your partner and your mother, and are reported to be polite and engaged with the interview process. Nevertheless, you were assessed as presenting a high risk of reoffending, although I notice a medium risk of violent reoffending, largely due to your criminal history which demonstrated a disregard for the law. Your conviction on these charges reinforces the validity of that assessment that you do present a high risk of reoffending.

[25] Your refusal to acknowledge your guilt in the face of what I consider to be overwhelming evidence demonstrates your detachment from reality and a disturbing

lack of humanity. The unemotional way in which you strangled Ms Portman, and the evidence that shortly after the murder you appeared in a calm and relaxed state, when compared with the appearance of nervousness prior to the murder, all suggest a considerable disassociation from the reality of taking the life of another person. For these reasons, I consider you to be extremely dangerous.

Dean Addison

Kidnapping

[26] I now come to determining the appropriate sentences for you first, Mr Addison. I deal with the kidnapping which I take as the lead offence.

[27] The Crown points to the following aggravating features of your offending: threatened violence, implicit in the nature of the kidnapping and in your instructions to Mr Te Awa to teach Ms Portman a lesson; premeditation; the five-hour duration of the detention; the involvement of more than one offender; and the devastating impact of the offending on Ms Portman’s family.

[28] In the District Court, in sentencing your co-offender Lee Rigby for his part in the kidnapping, Judge Moses adopted a starting point of seven years’ imprisonment having regard to sentences imposed in similar cases, the circumstances of the kidnapping in this case, and the part played by Mr Rigby. The Judge took into account that Mr Rigby was actually involved in placing Ms Portman in the car and transporting her, but also that he was under some duress as a result of Mr Te Awa’s threats.

[29] The Crown points to your failure to acknowledge your guilt and the absence of any remorse. You hindered the Police investigation into Ms Portman’s disappearance by providing false information to them. It is said that a sentence of nine years’ imprisonment is required to properly reflect your role in the kidnapping and the Crown seeks a minimum period of imprisonment of 50 per cent of the end sentence.²

[30] Mr Ryan argues on your behalf that the appropriate starting point is seven years’ imprisonment, the same as for Mr Rigby, applying the principle of parity in sentencing even though he submits that you are in fact less culpable than Mr Rigby. He first submitted that this should be imposed concurrently with a term of three years’ imprisonment for the drugs charges and submits that there is no need for a minimum period of imprisonment.

[31] Because the circumstances of kidnappings are so varied,³ Mr Addison, there is no guideline judgment to help me determine what your kidnapping sentence should be. It is also necessary to be mindful, in considering the relevance of sentences imposed in other cases, that many kidnappings involve other serious offending including murder, as this one does. A less analytical approach to a kidnapping sentence may have been taken in a case where the court focussed its attention on a more serious charge as the lead offence.

[32] The drug-related background to the kidnapping does not excuse or mitigate it in any way. The nature and degree of the coercion involved; the period of detention; and Ms Portman’s pregnancy of four months, combine to make this serious offending of its kind. I consider the starting point of seven years adopted for Mr Rigby to be more than justified, notwithstanding that he was acting under a degree of coercion.

[33] The law does not make you less culpable or blameworthy than Mr Te Awa and Mr Rigby, just because you were not physically involved in the kidnapping, so I take a starting point of seven years, which may be considered to be towards the bottom of the available range in these circumstances.

[34] There are aggravating factors related to your involvement. I accept the Crown’s submission that you instigated the kidnapping for the purpose of teaching Ms Portman a lesson by causing her distress. You exploited your relationships with both Mr Te Awa and Mr Rigby in engaging them to carry out your plan; you were the mastermind and in charge. Although I acknowledge that you did not intend Mr Te Awa to murder Ms Portman, I agree with Judge Moses that without the

kidnapping she would not have died; you are responsible for setting the tragic chain of events in motion.

[35] Furthermore, it is clear that your wife knew that Ms Portman was pregnant and I am satisfied because of your close relationship with your wife, and her very close relationship with Ms Portman, that you also knew. Knowing Ms Portman’s feisty personality, you must have accepted that Mr Te Awa would be required to use his considerable size and strength advantage to subdue her. You were present when Mr Te Awa came to your flat to request duct tape; you can have been under no illusions about why he wanted it.

[36] You must have known also that the experience would be extremely distressing for her; after all, that was the point of what you required Mr Te Awa to do. In directing Mr Te Awa to kidnap Ms Portman, you put the life of her unborn child at risk. Your willingness to subject a pregnant woman to this treatment is a seriously aggravating factor.

[37] I note also your conduct after Ms Portman’s kidnapping. You have failed to take responsibility for your actions and, bearing in mind the close relationship your wife and you had with Ms Portman, your lack of remorse borders on the callous. You feigned sympathy for her family during the months when she was missing, and then acted as a pallbearer at her funeral, concealing the fact that you played a major role in the events which led to her death.

[38] I therefore add an uplift of one year to the starting point making the appropriate end sentence for the kidnapping alone a term of eight years’ imprisonment.

Drug offending

[39] I need to take account of the totality of your offending. Adopting Mr Ryan’s initial submission that I should impose concurrent sentences of no more than three years for the drug convictions would mean that you would escape punishment for

that offending; that would be wrong and I think Mr Ryan was forced to concede that point.

[40] The maximum sentence for supplying methamphetamine is life imprisonment. You have been convicted of a representative charge. The evidence gathered by the police on the basis of text message data shows that between 14 June and 29 July 2012, you conducted 28 drug-dealing transactions. The quantities of methamphetamine you supplied on each of these occasions ranged from 0.25 of a gram to a gram, totalling between nine and 10 grams of methamphetamine.

[41] Applying the guideline judgment for sentencing on methamphetamine charges,⁴ that quantity would put you towards the lower end of the range of sentences for the supply of commercial quantities. The Court of Appeal has stated that this level of dealing attracts a starting point of between three and nine years’ imprisonment. I am satisfied from the number of transactions that this representative charge is indicative of more significant dealing activity by you, Mr Addison, so I

assess the appropriate sentence for the methamphetamine dealing, if taken alone, as being around four years.

[42] To that, a further uplift should be added for the conviction of possessing a precursor substance for the manufacture of methamphetamine. That relates to the set of ContacNT that was at the heart of your dispute with Ms Portman. The quantity of ContacNT involved in that one transaction could have been used to manufacture between 45 and 67.5 grams of pure methamphetamine. The evidence showed it was not an isolated instance of pseudoephedrine dealing. Standing alone, that offending would have justified up to two years’ imprisonment, so that the drug offending overall would attract a total sentence of around six years.

The totality approach – final end sentence

[43] If the sentences for the kidnapping and drug offences were to be served separately, therefore, you would serve a total of 14 years’ imprisonment. But while

_{they are separate offences and of a different kind, they are related in both time and}

⁴ R v Fatu [2006] 2 NZLR 72 (CA).

circumstance. Accordingly, I must set an end sentence which is in proportion to the totality of the offending.

[44] For that reason, I intend to sentence you on a basis which results in a total end sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment, and I consider that the most straight- forward way to do that is to uplift the sentence on the kidnapping charge and order that the other sentences shall be served concurrently with it.

Minimum period of imprisonment

[45] Offenders are normally eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence.⁵ The Court may impose a minimum period of imprisonment longer than the usual one-third of sentence, however, if it is satisfied that doing so is necessary to fulfil the sentencing purposes of holding the offender accountable; denunciation and deterrence; and community protection.⁶ Notwithstanding Mr Ryan’s submissions to the contrary, I consider that, given the seriousness of the kidnapping and the aggravating factors I have mentioned, possible release after one-third of the overall sentence would be a clearly inadequate response in the eyes of the community.⁷

Looking at your overall culpability, particularly in respect of what happened to Ms Portman and your lack of remorse for your role in it, I am satisfied that your offending meets this threshold and that a minimum period of imprisonment of six years – or 50 per cent of the total end sentence – is appropriate. Deciding how much longer than the minimum period you will actually serve will be a matter for the Parole Board.

Paraire Te Awa

[46] I now turn to you, Mr Te Awa. You have been convicted of murder and you must be sentenced to life imprisonment.⁸ In terms of this charge, the only question for me to decide today is the appropriate minimum period of imprisonment you must

_{serve before you become eligible to be considered for parole.}

⁵ _{Parole Act 2002, s 84(1).}

⁶ _{Sentencing Act, s 86(2).}

⁷ _{R v Gordon [2009] NZCA 145 at [15].}

8. Sentencing Act, s 102, unless a life sentence would be manifestly unjust. That is not the case here.

Minimum period of imprisonment

[47] I want to make it clear to you and to others that this minimum period of imprisonment is unlikely to represent the total number of years you will actually spend in prison; rather, it is the number of years you must serve before release on parole is even a possibility. You will be released after that minimum period only if the Parole Board is satisfied that you no longer pose a risk to the community. At the moment you are clearly a serious threat to the safety of the community – if this does not change, you will never be released. It is in your hands, Mr Te Awa, as to whether you are ever released and the first thing you must do is acknowledge what you have done, accept responsibility for it and get treatment. If you are ever released you are liable to be recalled to prison at any time if it is believed you have become, once again, a threat to society.

[48] In most murder cases, the minimum period of imprisonment will be one of

10 years.⁹ However, Parliament has decided that the appropriate minimum for some particularly serious murders is at least 17 years.¹⁰ Bearing in mind the factors that take a murder into this higher level of seriousness, the Crown submits that this is one such case because it involved calculated planning, including an arrangement for you to receive Mr Addison’s ute;¹¹ it was committed in the course of another serious

_{offence, namely Ms Portman’s kidnapping;}¹² _{and it was committed with a high level}

of brutality, cruelty, depravity or callousness.¹³

[49] The Crown points also to the use of a weapon, and by that I mean the door handle and the strop; a particularly cruel and callous attitude in respect of both the offending and your victim; the high extent of loss and harm; and premeditation. Counsel remind me also that you continue to deny your involvement in the offending and therefore show a complete absence of remorse, and they refer to your criminal history. The Crown says there are no mitigating factors in respect of the offending or

_{you personally.}

⁹ _{Sentencing Act, s 103.}

¹⁰ _{Sentencing Act, s 104.}

¹¹ _{Sentencing Act, s 104(b).}

¹² _{Sentencing Act, s 104(d).}

¹³ Sentencing Act, s 104(e).

[50] The Crown submits, therefore, that an appropriate starting point for the minimum period of imprisonment is 20 years, uplifted to 21 years based on the aggravating personal circumstances.

[51] Because you refuse to acknowledge your guilt, you have made it difficult for Mr Kaye to represent your best interests in this matter. He has done his considerable best but he knows that I must sentence you on the basis of my view of the facts so far as they are consistent with the jury’s verdicts, and he has conceded responsibly that a sentence of life imprisonment for Ms Portman’s murder is inevitable. Mr Kaye accepts also that I will have little difficulty in finding that a minimum term of more than 10 years is called for, but he says that the Crown’s suggested minimum sentence of 21 years is too long, given the principle that the sentence should be the least

restrictive in all the circumstances of the case.¹⁴

[52] Mr Kaye does not dispute the aggravating factors identified by the Crown, or at least two of them, but he submits that if there was premeditation, it was limited to a plan between Mr Addison and you to give Ms Portman a fright by leaving her in the vehicle in an isolated location. Defence counsel also contends that although you have previous convictions, including for sexual offences involving minors, you do not have a consistent record for serious violence that would justify an uplift to the minimum sentence.

Discussion

[53] I agree that the provisions for an increased minimum period are clearly engaged, first because you murdered Ms Portman in the course of committing the serious offence of kidnapping her. Second, while this was not a brutal murder, it was one committed with a high level of cruelty and callousness, as I have already discussed.¹⁵

[54] I am not prepared to hold that you were motivated to commit murder by the fact that you thought killing Ms Portman would see you receive Mr Addison’s utility

¹⁴ _{Sentencing Act, s 8(g).}

¹⁵ See the discussion of the facts at [8]-[13] above.

vehicle. Although I am satisfied you hinted that to Mr Rigby, the precise nature of any arrangement between you and Mr Addison concerning the vehicle was not explored in the evidence, but it is a fact that the vehicle was transferred into your name very soon after the murder.

[55] When the trigger factors are present, the only circumstance in which the Court may decline to impose a 17-year minimum term is where doing so would be manifestly unjust.¹⁶ There are no facts suggesting that that would be the case here and it is beyond doubt that you should properly spend at least 17 years in prison without the possibility of parole. In fact, the Court of Appeal has held that where, as here, more than one of the relevant factors are present, the starting point for the minimum period of imprisonment should be greater than 17 years.¹⁷

[56] I have considered broadly comparable cases, particularly one¹⁸ in which the victim was hog-tied and left in a shed overnight before being taken to a gully and murdered with a thistle grubber. That case involved similar factors to those present here, although in that case the victim was subjected to extreme violence and bled to death over several minutes.

[57] While the method of the killing in that case was more brutal, I am required to take into account as an aggravating factor in any sentencing the extent of any loss, damage or harm resulting from the offence.¹⁹ In this case, although I am unable to say that you were aware of it at the time, the serious harm caused by your offending involved ending not one but two lives, including that of an unborn child. Further, your conduct after the murder – hiding Ms Portman’s body in a rubbish tip in an attempt to prevent it ever being found – caused great anxiety and distress to her family and friends over several months.

[58] Consistently with the approach taken in that other case, I begin on the murder conviction with a starting point of a minimum period of imprisonment of 20 years. I

_{increase it by a further year on account of your previous convictions, including for}

¹⁶ _{Sentencing Act, s 104.}

¹⁷ _{R v Baker [2007] NZCA 277 at [23].}

¹⁸ _{R v Bracken [2012] NZHC 3158.}

¹⁹ Sentencing Act, s 9(1)(d).

serious violent offending, but particularly your complete lack of remorse and refusal to accept responsibility for those actions. Those latter factors are significant in terms of the prospect of your rehabilitation and I also take into account the fact that two lives were lost here.

[59] In respect of the kidnapping, the Crown submits that you should serve a concurrent sentence of eight years’ imprisonment. I have adopted starting points of seven years for your co-offenders. You acted at the request of Mr Addison but you decided how the kidnapping was to be carried out and that Ms Portman was to be bound and gagged in the cruel manner I have described. Significantly, you treated her in that way with the intention of killing her. I consider you to be more culpable than Mr Addison on the kidnapping charge, and I uplift the sentence from a starting point of seven years to one of nine years’ imprisonment, to be served concurrently with the term of life imprisonment.

Sentence

[60] Will you please both stand.

[61] Mr Addison, on the count of kidnapping, I sentence you to 12 years’ imprisonment, and I direct that you serve a minimum period of six years on that count. On the count of supplying methamphetamine, I sentence you to four years’ imprisonment. For possessing a precursor substance I sentence you to two years’ imprisonment. All sentences are to be served concurrently. This means that the effective end sentence is 12 years’ imprisonment of which you must serve a minimum period of six years.

[62] Mr Te Awa, I sentence you to life imprisonment for murder. You are to serve a minimum period of imprisonment of 21 years. You are also sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for kidnapping, to be served concurrently.

_{[63] Stand down.}

.............................................

Toogood J