What’s up with the Hutt?
Several violent incidents have put the Hutt Valley back in the spotlight, not that it really needs or wants the attention. Julie Jacobson investigates.
Baby Ru. The Hutt Valley. The two are inextricably linked – in the worst possible way. Baby Ru died last October as a result of blunt force trauma, just days before his second birthday.
Taitā, where the toddler lived, is the same Lower Hutt suburb which last week saw police engaged in a 10-hour standoff with an armed man and a mass brawl involving 200 mostly young people.
Those events followed several other violent incidents in the Hutt Valley in recent times, including a serious assault at a High St petrol station on February 26, the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Rawiri Zane Wharerau at a gang-linked birthday party in Stokes Valley in December – his brother also suffered life-threatening gunshot wounds – and a hit and run in Naenae.
Lower Hutt woman Anita Rani, 62, died at the scene of the crash early on the morning of Thursday, November 16.
Later that same day police shot and killed a man who was involved in a domestic dispute with a woman on Coast Rd in Wainuiomata.
A raft of brutal assaults in the streets surrounding Queensgate Mall and more specifically Bunny St, a known trouble hotspot, included an attack on two girls who were set upon by another group of girls while onlookers filmed the incident.
Lower Hutt has always had something of a reputation as the “bogan” capital of Wellington, from the “milkbar cowboys” of the 1950s and their moral delinquency to boy racers and their tyre-stripping burn outs.
But these latest events have horrified the community in a new way, not least because of the violence involved.
A crime snapshot of violent crime in the Lower Hutt police district for the 12 months to February this year shows while reported sexual assaults and abductions were down on the year to February 2023, the number of other assaults and robberies (theft accompanied by violence or threats of violence as opposed to burglaries) increased.
Overall there were 889 violent crimes reported in the 2023-24 year, up 22 on the same period the year before.
So what is up with the Hutt, estimated 2020 population 111,500, home of Nobel laureate the late Alan McDiarmid, two-time Olympic medallist Nick Willis, Oscar-winning actress Anna Paquin and All Blacks Tana Umaga and Piri Weepu, among others?
Notes from a police briefing provided to Hutt city councillors last July cited family harm as the biggest issue for the region – from December 2022 to mid-January 2023 police responded to more than 1000 family harm incidents – along with youth issues. Mental health, too, was a growing concern, exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, as was retail crime.
Acting Hutt Valley Area Commander Inspector Rob Rutene said crime, anywhere, was a concern.
Since Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns, the Hutt had seen a small upward trend in violent offending, but it was the incidence of family harm and sexual abuse which was a particular worry.
“We have had several high-profile incidents of late,” he said. “However, in nearly all of those cases we have either resolved them safely or held offenders accountable by putting them before the court.”
The incidents were isolated and need to be treated in their individual contexts, he said, adding that police wouldn’t tolerate further gang violence.
“We have investigative staff that have brought and will continue to bring anyone who commits violent crimes, including gang members, before the court.”
While socio-economic factors played a part, crime was widespread across all sectors of the community and could not be attributed to one particular group or place.
“It does not just occur in our vulnerable communities.”
Late last year Hutt South MP Chris Bishop said, albeit in reference to possible misconceptions of its infamy rather than any prescient comment on what lay ahead: “The Hutt Valley is known for bogans but there's so much more going on here than just so-called boganism.”
This week Bishop acknowledged the escalation in gang activity, and associated violence.
But again, like Rutene, he argued it wasn’t unique to the Hutt Valley.
“You know, I’ll always stick up for the Hutt, it’s a wonderful place, but we do have pockets of criminal activity, and that has risen.
“We have definitely noticed it, like everybody else around the country has.”
That uptick in serious crime was one of the reasons the Government was cracking down on gangs, with a range of new measures aimed at restoring law and order, Bishop said.
They included the controversial patch ban, making gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing, limiting freedom of association and firearms prohibition orders.
Under the new legislation, introduced to Parliament on Thursday as part of the coalition Government’s agreement, courts will be able to issue non-consorting orders, which would stop specified gang offenders from associating or communicating with one another for up to three years. Police would be given the power to issue dispersal notices, requiring gang members to immediately leave an area.
Bishop agreed with Rutene that the drivers of crime were difficult to pinpoint and that there were numerous underlying causes.
“Just as there are pockets of criminal activity, there are also pockets of social deprivation. But what that means is we need to be doing all we can to lift people out of poverty.”
Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce chief executive Patrick McKibbin has been vocal about the effect of crime on the city, saying last year that the behaviour of young offenders had scared businesses and put off customers.
At a meeting called by the chamber in February 2023, following multiple incidents including a stolen car chase with offenders aged just 14 and an aggravated robbery on a Lower Hutt bus, police noted there was a small hard core of long-time youth offenders who were behind many of the problems.
McKibbon said though that was still the case, there had been a drop-off in inner city crime over the last six months, largely due to an increased police presence, council initiatives around the use of CCTV, and a redesign of the problematic Bunny St bus stop.
From a reputational perspective, however, “it was not great”.
“Obviously instances of crime are quite visible, and people may make a choice, particularly in the retail/hospitality environment to go elsewhere. So you know, they certainly don’t do anything to enhance the Valley’s reputation.”
Bishop knows that only too well; ongoing serious crime by a small cohort of young offenders, was an issue that had been raised with him, often, he said.
It continued to vex him: “I think school attendance is a real issue, because kids in school who are engaged and learning are not out on the streets causing mayhem.”
Latest figures from the Ministry of Education show that in term 3 of 2023, 2045 or 12.1% of Lower Hutt students were classified as being chronically absent from school, meaning they had attended 70% or less of their classes.
That number includes students not at school for various reasons, such as truancy, illness and other medical reasons and is around the national average.
Bishop expected planned curriculum changes and the introduction of boot camps, or Young Offender Military Academies as they’re officially known, would go some way to improving the situation.
But they have also come in for criticism, with analysis revealing 85-87% of those on a similar programme introduced by the National government in 2008 went on to reoffend within two years.
Children's Minister Karen Chhour announced earlier this week that the camps would be running by the middle of the year.
The Government was also looking to invest more in programmes such as the Naenae Boxing academy, run by long-time youth mentor and coach Billy Graham, and Ignite Sport, a youth development outfit that uses recreation to provide life skills and leadership training.
Said Bishop: “And that’s about prevention. It’s fine to go after the young kids who commit crime, and they do need to face consequences, but we also need to invest in the front line to make sure they don’t get to that position in the first place.”
Police are also piloting the Fast Track programme in the Hutt Valley alongside Oranga Tamariki and a number of other agencies.
The programme addresses the drivers of crime in 10 to 13-year-olds, with the aim of providing early solutions and pathways for young people.
Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry was circumspect about the what he described as the recent “troubling high-profile incidents’’, saying they had understandably caused concern among the community and had been difficult for those impacted by them.
However, he was also confident they were isolated and did not indicate a significant change in the safety of the city.
“Overall Lower Hutt is a safe place where people look out for each other.”
Barry said he had been in close communication with police and would continue to work with them where needed, as would the council’s city safety team.
The mayor has an ally in councillor Naomi Shaw, who has lived in Taitā all her life. Shaw was the captain of the 1982 World Cup-winning White Sox softball team.
In a column written for this week’s Hutt News Shaw said the recent criminal activity had “highlighted us as being a place we are not”.
She noted how, following the assault at the petrol station, the community had banded together to donate money and groceries to the affected whānau.
“A post on the Taitā Community Facebook page asked what you like about Taitā and out of that came hundreds of comments of goodness,’’ Shaw said.
“The community is full of kind and caring people.”
“You know, I’ll always stick up for the Hutt, it’s a wonderful place, but we do have pockets of criminal activity, and that has risen.’’
Hutt South MP Chris Bishop