Afghan teen makes rapid descent into crime in NZ
After fleeing the threat of the Taliban, Romal Shafiq has moved on to ram raids and fist-fights as a means of alleviating the “boredom” of life in Hamilton.
The teenager who arrived in New Zealand with his family as a refugee from wartorn Afghanistan has made a violent and unruly start to life in his adoptive country.
But there is hope that Romal Muhammad Shafiq, 19, might soon change his ways, and avoid a repeat of a month-long stay in Spring Hill Prison, which has just come to an end.
It was a month that was very nearly followed by an additional year in jail, when he was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court yesterday on an array of charges.
These included assault with intent to injure, burglary, disorderly behaviour, wilful damage and unlawfully taking motor vehicles.
Most related to a spree on the night of April 25 and 26 last year. He and others stole cars, which they used to first - unsuccessfully - gain access to the Cheep Liquor Centre in Ngaruawahia, before heading in convoy to attack the Vice Vape Shop in Victoria St, Hamilton, at 5.22am.
On that enterprise they used a Subaru Forester to smash into the store - causing $20,000 worth of damage - before loading thousands of dollars worth of product into two getaway cars and taking off.
A later incident that led to police charges took place in the driveway outside his home in Rototuna, Hamilton, in November - while he was on bail for the earlier offending - when he began posturing and challenging the occupants of a house across the road to come out and fight him.
That situation had a sequel on January 25, when Shafiq crossed the road in another bid to start a fight with the neighbours.
That altercation sparked a 20-person brawl, during which he picked up an axe someone had left lying on the ground and used it to chop a hole into the rear of his neighbours’ car.
Soon after, he approached the neighbour with his hand extended. “We all good?” he asked. As soon as his neighbour accepted the apparent offer of friendship, Shafiq swung at him with his other hand, delivering five rapid punches to the other man’s head.
In court, Judge Tini Clarke grappled with whether or not to send Shafiq back to prison, or allow him a home detention sentence, as she weighed his litany of misdeeds against the magnitude of his background and circumstances.
It was a calculation that ended with a 12-month jail term, which the judge commuted to a six-month stint of home detention.
It will be a sentence that will be more of a challenge than a holiday for Shafiq, thanks to his history of non-compliance while on bail.
The teenager sat in the dock with his head bowed throughout much of the lengthy sentencing process. On his cheek was a tattoo in the shape of a “7” - which denotes his membership of the “H-town 07” gang, which has been responsible for some of the spate of ram raids and similar crimes in the city in recent years.
It was an adornment Shafiq now considered a mark of shame and, as his counsel Rob Quin told the court, he wanted to have the tattoo removed as soon as he could.
“He has had a taste of an adult justice facility, and he does not like it,” the lawyer said. A pre-sentence report had found Shafiq was likely suffering from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. His father had died about the same time the family had come to New Zealand, and his mother had been left “doing it hard” trying to keep him and his younger siblings in line, Clarke said.
Alienated and disaffected, Shafiq had drifted towards “others who have struggled ... on the margins of our society”.
Shafiq had also suffered from being unable to access education in his home country, and his relocation to New Zealand “seems to be an opportunity squandered”.
Judge Clark said she had sympathy for Shafiq’s mother, who had her hands full trying to keep his younger siblings from following his poor example, and was fearful he would again succumb to boredom.
“I got the impression she was doing her very best.”