Kidnapping victim: ‘I accepted I might die’
Her jaw dislocated and a screwdriver held to her back, a young woman has described the moment she thought she would die after being kidnapped by a group of youths and bundled into the boot of a stolen car.
The horrific ordeal for the woman and her friend began on the night of May 3 along central Auckland’s Bowen Ave.
It ended some three hours later and 52km away in the Bombay Hills when police found the pair injured and lying in a wrecked car after it had crashed off a bridge.
“I was terrified and I feared for my life,” one of the victims told a court during the sentencing of one of her kidnappers yesterday.
“I felt like there was no escape . . . I was forced to accept that I might die.”
Lenora Mahanga, 20, the eldest of a group of five — the youngest just 13 — was sentenced by Judge Brooke Gibson in the Auckland District Court to a total of six years, seven months’ imprisonment.
The judge said it may be many years before the public is safe from Mahanga.
“I would be surprised if you didn’t constitute a risk to the public even after you have completed your sentence,” he said.
One of the victims said her injuries from the crash included concussion and several lacerations.
“I now find myself having to deal with high levels of anxiety,” she said.
“I would feel safer knowing that the offender is not on the streets.”
Mahanga, supported in court by her father and mother, was sentenced on two charges each of kidnapping, aggravated robbery, unlawful interference of a motor vehicle, and one charge of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.
Judge Gibson also sentenced Mahanga on 14 further charges.
The 13-year-old girl in the group was referred to Youth Aid, while the two 15-year-olds and the 14-year-old were placed before the Youth Court.
They were each charged with two counts kidnapping each, aggravated robbery, unlawful interference of a motor vehicle, and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.
One of the 15-year-olds was also charged with dangerous driving causing injury.
Mahanga was in a relationship with one of the boys, the court heard.