Gangster gun tale backfires

Plan for pal to take AR-15 blame ends with pair in jail

Agang member’s plan for a friend to take the blame for a military-style firearm — the weapon of choice in recent mass shootings overseas — backfired when both men were jailed.

Police found an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a suppressor, telescopic scope, two high-capacity 30-round magazines, as well as 16 rounds, hidden in the garage of Liam John Kane’s Tauranga home.

The 28-year-old is a patched member of the Head Hunters and pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

At his trial in September, an associate of the gang, Brent Anthony Gunning, gave evidence and attempted to take the blame.

Gunning, 38, told the jury he paid $800 for the firearm as a birthday present for himself. He used it to shoot possums but put the AR-15 and ammunition in the wall cavity of Kane’s garage, behind shelves, without telling his friend.

So the police charged Gunning too. The 38-year-old pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

However, the jury in Kane’s trial clearly did not believe Gunning.

Despite Gunning taking the fall — and eventually being jailed last week for 15 months — Kane was found guilty of the same charges for the same weapon, as well as a breach of a protection order.

This week Kane was jailed by Judge Thomas Ingram for three years and nine months, a sentence harsher than the Crown had sought.

But Judge Ingram said he was concerned about recent “gangland” murders in the Bay of Plenty and the Waikato, many of them shootings.

The judge had presided over a number of prosecutions against the Head Hunters in recent years, including Kane’s trial, and said firearms featured in all of them.

So Judge Ingram said he wanted to send a message to gang members caught with guns.

“This a serious piece of weaponry in wide use by military forces around the world,” he said of the AR-15.

“I also consider possession by a gang member of a military-style weapon with two magazines which has serious firepower, as we have recently seen in the United States, as a serious aggravating factor.”

The semi-automatic rifle, with the serial number ground off, was discovered in Kane’s garage in October 2017, six months after Kane was sentenced on a charge of unlawful possession of a shotgun hidden under his bed.

He was convicted on the single charge after a trial with seven other Head Hunters on dozens of charges stemming from the alleged kidnapping of a wealthy businessman.

In sentencing Kane to community detention and community work on the shotgun charge, Justice Timothy Brewer urged him to change his life or risk ending up in prison.

Detective Sergeant Alan Kingsbury, the officer in charge of the AR-15 case, said police were increasingly finding firearms in their day-to-day work.