50 years’ jail time for Mob members

Jail time totalling half a century has been imposed on Mongrel Mob gang members and associates for the kidnapping and bashing of gang rival Dawson Reihana.

Eight men were jailed by Justice Cameron Mander, who was the trial judge in August and September when six of them were found guilty. Two had already admitted charges.

The Christchurch High Court sitting went quietly except for some shouting of gang slogans and gesturing as the prisoners were taken away to begin their jail terms.

The gang members – said to have links with the Aotearoa chapter of the Mob, while Reihana was a member of the Notorious chapter – were brought into court and sentenced in small groups, tightly surrounded by Corrections officers.

Reihana had been bashed with hammers, knuckledusters, punched, kicked, and struck with a cosh consisting of an ash tray inside a sock. The beating continued when he was bound hand and foot, and when he was already badly injured. He was threatened with being stabbed in the face, or having his family home “visited”.

He was attacked at a house where Mulvey had lured him in Ajax Street, Shirley, and then transported to a Mob house in Bowenvale Avenue, Cashmere, where the bashing continued with people taking turns for hours. Mob members tried to contact Reihana’s friends and family to extract money or property for his release.

Justice Mander said: “With good reason, he didn’t think he would leave the Bowenvale house alive.”

He got one of his captors’ cellphones and called the police, and then released himself while the police surrounded the house. By then he was cut and bruised, and had a broken nose. Justice Mander said the photographs of his injuries to his face were “graphic”.

Some of the defence lawyers suggested that Reihana’s level of injuries did not equate with his account of the violence he had been subjected to.

Before the session, defence counsel Tony Greig handed Justice Mander a letter Matthew James Mulvey had written. In it, the 12-year Mob member took responsibility for what had happened, but expressed no remorse and disputed Reihana’s account of the events. Mulvey was about to receive the longest sentence.

Mulvey, 35, was jailed for 10 years 6 months for kidnapping, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and two charges of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Leon Delshannon Turner, 41, a builder, was jailed for 10 years on the same charges. He claims to be no longer a member of the Mongrel Mob.

Peter Damian Gilbert, 46, a concrete worker who has already served a long jail term for a kidnapping in 2004, was jailed for 9 years 6 months for kidnapping, wounding, and one injuring charge.

Those three men had been the ringleaders, who had begun the incident by bashing Reihana with hammers after he had been lured into the trap at Ajax Street.

Earl Fraser Waitokia, 39, of Wanganui, who had pleaded guilty before trial to a charge of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, was jailed for 6 years.

Jason Phillip Reweti, 33, who had guarded Reihana while armed with a tomahawk but had not assaulted him, was jailed for  4 years 6 months on charges of kidnapping and being a party to the injuring.

August Keefe, 57, was described by defence counsel Margaret Sewell as having a horrific background which made him regard the Mongrel Mob as his family. He has 92 previous convictions. He was jailed today for 6 years 6 months on charges of kidnapping and injuring.

Dylan Raymond Shannon Corbin, 27, a forklift driver who was found guilty of kidnapping at the trial, was jailed for 2 years 5 months.

Albert Hollis Mauheni, 35, a plasterer, had admitted the kidnapping charge before the trial began and was jailed for 15 months. Defence counsel Phillip Allan said Mauheni had felt powerless when he saw what had been done to Reihana and felt that he could find himself in the same position if he did not obey the orders given to him. He will be allowed to apply for home detention if a suitable address becomes available.

Non-parole terms of half the jail terms were imposed on Mulvey, Turner, Gilbert, and Waitokia, and all were given first strike warnings that impose heavier penalties on repeat violent offenders.

 

Tags: bashing, injuring, kidnapping, Mongrel Mob, wounding

Category: News