Festival burglar took clothes from tents
A TENT-BURGLING teenager who took the shine off the Rhythm and Vines festival for campers by robbing them while they enjoyed the entertainment has had his sentence reduced.
Thomas Teni Tutakangahau, 18, had jumped a fence to get into Churchill Park, Gisborne, last December and opened two closed tents, taking clothing and other belongings of four people who were at the festival.
Tutakangahau was caught the next morning but not all the property was recovered. One camper said $760 worth of property was not found and another said they lost $850 worth.
On January 8, Tutakangahau pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary and was remanded in custody.
His lawyer had hoped to get him a home detention sentence but on February 18, Judge Tony Adeane refused an adjournment for home detention to be considered and instead sent him to jail for 11 months.
The Court of Appeal now says the judge’s decision not to consider home detention was based on Tutakangahau’s previous convictions being wrongly described in a probation officer’s report.
An appeal to the High Court did not lessen the term but last month the case went to the Court of Appeal. Because Tutakangahau’s release was imminent at that time, the court gave its decision to reduce the jail term to six months and on Friday it released the reasons for its decision.
The three appeal judges said Judge Adeane had started calculating the sen- tence from too-high a point and the nature and number of Tutakangahau’s previous convictions were overstated. The error about his previous offending had also wrongly led the judge to not give Tutakangahau a discount for his youth.
The Court of Appeal said generally youths could have a reduced sentence for reasons that included their greater capacity to be rehabilitated. A different sentence more directed at rehabilitation should have been considered but because Tutakangahau had been incarcerated since January it imposed a jail term that meant he would be released immediately.
The court also sentenced him to take counselling and treatment over about 11 months.