Violent assaults lead to lengthy jail term
A Mongrel Mob member involved in a group assault on another man in Invercargill Prison has since made the "brave" decision to leave the gang, a district court judge says.
On Thursday, Judge Duncan Harvey sentenced Matu Riwai Templeton in the Invercargill District Court to a 6½-year prison term for charges involving threats to a woman and a hammer attack on a man in June, and the prison assault three months later.
Judge Harvey said Templeton was one of four men involved in attacking another man in a toilet block at Invercargill Prison on September 15.
Though he wasn't the instigator, he prevented the man from leaving the toilet block, took his turn punching and kicking him for about 25 seconds and did celebratory “fist pumps” with his alleged cooffenders, the judge said.
A report to the court said Templeton was patched by the Mongrel Mob about a month before being remanded in custody for earlier offending.
However, he had now decided to leave the gang as a result of being ordered to assault the man in prison, the judge said.
"You have taken a very brave decision to exit the gang and I commend you for that ... if you remained in the gang we would see you again."
The judge also outlined Templeton’s earlier offending, in which he visited a woman he knew, took her cellphone and laptop against her will, and used her social media accounts on the devices to dupe another man into meeting him.
He later hit the man repeatedly in the head, shoulders and back with a hammer and the man’s face was cut, either with a hammer or a knife.
It was a “vicious assault” and the victim, who was sitting in his car at the time, got out and fled.
“He required surgery to stitch his face back together,” the judge said.
Templeton blamed methamphetamine for his offending, the judge said.
The judge accepted there was a correlation between Templeton's offending and his background, but said that didn't excuse his offending. "It helps to explain it."