Piukana v The King - [2025] NZCA 71

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

I TE KŌTI PĪRA O AOTEAROA

CA589/2024
[2025] NZCA 71

BETWEEN	KIMELA PIUKANA Appellant
AND	THE KING Respondent

Hearing:	26 February 2025
Court:	Hinton, Woolford and Edwards JJ
Counsel:	P K Hamlin and B A Mugisho for Appellant M W Nathan and T A O T Veikune for Respondent
Judgment:	25 March 2025 at 11 am

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The appeal is dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Hinton J)

On 5 June 2024, Mr Piukana pleaded guilty to one charge of participating in an organised criminal group for his role in a syndicate involved in the commercial importation of methamphetamine into New Zealand.[1]
[1]Crimes Act 1961, s 98A. Maximum penalty: 10 years’ imprisonment.
The syndicate operated out of Auckland International Airport and involved a crew of corrupt baggage handlers, organised by Mr Piukana’s older brother, who was a service and delivery leader at the domestic terminal. Mr Piukana was a baggage handler but his role in the syndicate was not in that capacity: rather, he was a “messenger”.
On 16 August 2024, Wilkinson-Smith J declined Mr Piukana’s application for a discharge without conviction and sentenced him to 14 months’ imprisonment, which she commuted to seven months’ home detention.[2]
[2]R v Piukana [2024] NZHC 2311 at [62].
Mr Piukana now appeals against the refusal to grant him a discharge without conviction. If that appeal is dismissed, he does not otherwise appeal against his sentence.
Mr Piukana’s key point on appeal is that the Judge made a number of errors in assessing the gravity of Mr Piukana’s offending and consequently wrongly concluded his offending was “serious”. In particular the Judge placed too much weight on the more serious group offending and wrongly treated Mr Piukana as if he were involved in his role as a baggage handler and therefore had breached his employer’s trust. This last factor is said to have also impacted on the Judge’s allegedly erroneous conclusion that the consequences of Mr Piukana’s offending were not out of all proportion to the gravity of that offending.

Background

We adopt the Judge’s description of what occurred:[3]
[3]R v Piukana, above n 2.
[4] In June 2021, Police commenced a joint investigation with the New Zealand Customs Service (Operation Selena). The investigation arose out of two previous Police and Customs operations that had identified a number of syndicates involved in the importation of methamphetamine, operating out of Auckland International Airport.
[5] Throughout 2021, your older brother received instructions from the leader of the syndicate regarding importations of commercial quantities of methamphetamine onboard Malaysian Airlines flights from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (MH145) and Air New Zealand flights from Los Angeles, United States (NZ5). Your older brother worked for Air New Zealand as Service and Delivery Leader out of the domestic terminal at Auckland Airport. He was responsible for assigning baggage handling staff to particular flights and for unloading baggage when the crew was short staffed. By virtue of his employment,…

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 Piukana v The King

Details

AGLC: Piukana v The King [2025] NZCA 71
Case: [2025] NZCA 71
Decision Date: 25 March 2025 at 11 am

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, Kimela Piukana appealed against the refusal to grant him a discharge without conviction for his role in a syndicate involved in the commercial importation of methamphetamine into New Zealand. Piukana, a baggage handler, acted as a "messenger" for his older brother, who led the syndicate at Auckland International Airport. Piukana's key argument on appeal was that the trial Judge had made errors in assessing the gravity of his offending, leading to an incorrect conclusion that his offending was "serious". In particular, Piukana argued that the Judge had wrongly treated him as if he had been involved in the offending in his capacity as a baggage handler, and thus in breach of his employer's trust. The Court of Appeal considered the submissions and concluded that the Judge had not assessed Piukana's offending as "serious", but rather at the lower end of "serious" or "moderately serious". The Court found that the Judge had considered all relevant factors and applied the correct legal test. The Court also found that Piukana's role, although minor, was still part of a serious criminal operation, and his participation in the group's offending was significant enough to be considered serious. The Court agreed with the Judge's assessment that the consequences of conviction were not out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending, and accordingly dismissed the appeal. The Court noted that the Judge had taken great care in her analysis and the sentence imposed was kind to Piukana, given the nature of the offending.

Orders