Huiarangi v The Queen - [2021] NZCA 628

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

I TE KŌTI PĪRA O AOTEAROA

CA421/2021
[2021] NZCA 628

BETWEEN	NORMAN WILLIAM HUIARANGI Appellant
AND	THE QUEEN Respondent

Hearing:	2 November 2021
Court:	Kós P, S France and Katz JJ
Counsel:	H E Juran for Appellant J J Rhodes and T C T Riley for Respondent
Judgment:	26 November 2021 at 9 am

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

AThe conviction appeal is dismissed.
B The sentence appeal is dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Katz J)

Following a jury trial before Judge Moala in the District Court at Manukau, Norman Huiarangi was found guilty of assault with intent to injure.[1] He was convicted and sentenced to one year of imprisonment, to be followed by six months of standard and special release conditions.[2]
[1]Crimes Act 1961, s 193. Maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment.
[2]R v Huiarangi [2021] NZDC 10919.
Mr Huiarangi appeals both his conviction and sentence. He says that one of the Crown’s witnesses gave inadmissible hearsay evidence at trial and that, to compound the problem, the Judge repeated those hearsay statements in her summing‑up. As a result, Mr Huiarangi claims, there has been a miscarriage of justice.
In addition, Mr Huiarangi says that his sentence of imprisonment is manifestly excessive, and not in parity with the sentence given to his co-offender, Richard Raumati. Mr Juran, counsel for Mr Huiarangi, submitted that the least restrictive sentence that was appropriate in the circumstances is one of intensive supervision.

The offending

On 8 May 2017, Mr Huiarangi, his sister Aranoa Walker, Mr Raumati, the complainant, the complainant’s fiancée, and several other people were socialising at Mr Raumati’s home.
The complainant was a boarder at that address. His board payment was due that day. He went out twice to try and withdraw cash to pay, but returned empty‑ handed. This angered Mr Raumati, who began to act aggressively towards the complainant. As a result, the complainant retreated to his room and began packing his belongings, with help from his fiancée and Ms Walker.
Mr Raumati attempted to enter the complainant’s room, but the door was locked. After he began banging on the door with a steering wheel lock, Ms Walker opened it. Mr Raumati entered the room and swung the steering wheel lock with both hands at the complainant, striking him hard in the face.
At sentencing, the Judge set out her findings that once the complainant had been hit with the weapon, Mr Huiarangi pushed him towards the wall of the room.[3] When the complainant’s back hit the wall, the complainant slid down towards the corner of the room. While he slid, Mr Huiarangi attacked him, punching him once in the face with a closed fist. The Judge’s findings mirrored a statement that Ms Walker made to the police immediately after the offending. It is implicit from the jury’s guilty finding that they accepted that aspect of Ms Walker’s police statement as true.
[3]At [3].
The complainant suffered multiple fractures…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Huiarangi v The Queen

Details

AGLC: Huiarangi v The Queen [2021] NZCA 628
Case: [2021] NZCA 628
Decision Date: 26 November 2021 at 9 am

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The appellant, Norman Huiarangi, appealed against both his conviction and his sentence, following his conviction for assault with intent to injure. The appeal against conviction focused on the admission of hearsay evidence concerning an alleged rape, and the subsequent reference to this evidence in the summing up by the trial Judge. The appeal against sentence argued that the sentence of imprisonment was manifestly excessive, and not in parity with the sentence given to his co-offender, Richard Raumati. The Crown argued that the rape evidence was not inadmissible hearsay evidence as it was not relied on for the truth of its contents, but rather to demonstrate Huiarangi’s potential motive for assaulting the complainant. The Court found that the rape evidence was inadmissible hearsay unless the source of the information was Huiarangi himself. While Ms Walker identified Mr Huiarangi as the source of the rape evidence at least once in the second trial, and clearly identified him as such at the first trial, other occasions Ms Walker identified either an unknown person or the complainant’s fiancée as the person who told her that Mr Huiarangi had been told she had been raped. The Court found that the admission of this hearsay evidence did not result in a miscarriage of justice. The appeal against sentence was dismissed as the Court found that the sentence of imprisonment was within the significant margin of appreciation afforded to the sentencing Judge, given Huiarangi’s criminal and bail history. The Court also found that the parity principle had not been breached as the difference between Raumati’s starting point of three years and nine months’ imprisonment and Huiarangi’s starting point of 15 months’ imprisonment was proportionate to their respective culpability.

The appeal against conviction is dismissed. The appeal against sentence is dismissed.

Orders