Jail attack costs gangsters
Five Neighbourhood Crips members brutally pounced on victim in exercise yard
Five Neighbourhood Crips gangsters, including a convicted killer, will spend more time behind bars after a vicious prison-yard attack. Adam Robert Gempton, 29, is serving a life sentence with a non-parole term of 10 years after stabbing Timothy Constable to death in a brawl outside a Christchurch home in 2009.
He had found “brotherhood” in prison with the Neighbourhood Crips (NHC) gang, Christchurch District Court was told yesterday.
In a brutal 25-second attack on January 16 this year, captured on security cameras at Christchurch Men’s Prison, Gempton and fellow gang member Resham Toa BlakeFaatafa sidled up to their victim in the exercise yard.
They started attacking him when three other Crips — Joseph Regan Andy Epiha, Charles John Tawha and Riapo Piripi Tipene — jumped in with a flurry of punches.
The victim was kneed as he fell to the ground and prison guards rushed in.
It started after the victim, who refused medical treatment and declined to lay a complaint, allegedly breached the Crips’ rules, Judge David Saunders said yesterday.
A fortnight later, Gempton stabbed another inmate in the Adam’s apple with a shank comprised of a bent nail embedded in melted plastic. His defence counsel, Kerry Cook, said Gempton’s NHC affiliations were behind both assaults.
Yesterday, Gempton, Tawha, Tipene and Blake-Faatafa appeared from custody in shackles, offering gang signs to supporters in the public gallery.
Epiha appeared via audio visual link from Otago Corrections Facility,
Violence simply breeds violence. You will all know that from where you are today.
Judge David Saunders
where he had been transferred.
Judge Saunders told them violence was not to be encouraged, in or out of prison.
“Violence simply breeds violence. You will all know that from where you are today,” the judge said.
Tipene, who is in prison for bashing a Christchurch bus driver, and Blake-Faatafa, jailed for a vicious meth-hazed stomping of a Christchurch pensioner, were both given an extra 16 months on their sentences.
Tawha, also sentenced for a breach of release conditions in receiving a $30,000 stolen Lexus, had an additional 26 months added. Epiha, 30, with a history of violence, got an extra 14 months.
Serving a life sentence, Gempton got an extra two years and six months, which might affect future Parole Board applications.
Judge Saunders suggested he look at a carving inside the Christchurch prison’s parole room, which was created by a former “lifer” inmate.
After eight years of misconduct behind bars, the long-serving prisoner and talented artist realised he needed to change and so carved the inspirational sculpture. The judge told Gempton it showed people could turn their lives around. The former lifer was now “making a good living for himself on the outside”.
The prisoners threw gang signs and shouted to supporters as they were led back into custody.