50 years’ jail for Mongrel Mob members
Mongrel Mob gang members and associates have been sentenced to a combined 50 years in jail for the kidnapping and bashing of a gang rival.
Eight men were handed prison sentences at the High Court in Christchurch on Thursday. Six were found guilty at a trial in September. Two had already admitted charges.
The court was quiet 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 Mongrel Mob, while the victim was a member of the gang’s Notorious chapter – were brought into court and sentenced in small groups, tightly surrounded by Corrections officers.
The victim, Dawson Reihana, was bashed with hammers and knuckledusters, and punched, kicked, and struck with an ashtray inside a sock after being abducted in August last year.
The beating continued when he was bound hand and foot, and after he was already badly injured. He was threatened with being stabbed in the face, or having his family home ‘‘visited’’.
He was attacked after being lured to an Ajax St house by Matthew James Mulvey, then transported to a Mob house in Bowenvale Ave, 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 Cameron Mander said: ‘‘With good reason, he didn’t think he would leave the Bowenvale house alive.’’
Reihana got one of his captors’ cellphones and called police. He released himself while police surrounded the house.
Mulvey, 35, was jailed for 10 years, six 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 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, was jailed for nine years and six months for kidnapping, wounding, and one injuring charge.
Those three men were the ringleaders, who started the incident by bashing Reihana with hammers after he was lured into the trap at Ajax St.
Earl Fraser Waitokia, 39, of Whanganui, who pleaded guilty before trial to a charge of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, was jailed for six years.
Jason Phillip Reweti, 33, who guarded Reihana while armed with a tomahawk but had not assaulted him, was jailed for four years and six 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 had 92 previous convictions. He was jailed for six years, six months on charges of kidnapping and injuring.
Dylan Raymond Shannon Corbin, 27, who was found guilty of kidnapping at the trial, was jailed for two years, five months.
Albert Hollis Mauheni, 35, admitted the kidnapping charge before the trial began and was jailed for 15 months.
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.