R v Hanara

[2025] NZHC 2482

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND INVERCARGILL REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA WAIHŌPAI ROHE

CRI-2023-025-838

[2025] NZHC 2482

R

v

ROGER HEMI KIMIHANGA HANARA

Hearing:	28 August 2025
Counsel:	M B Brownlie for Crown J Lucas for Defendant
Judgment:	28 August 2025

SENTENCING NOTES OF OSBORNE J

Introduction

[1]        Roger Hanara, at the age of 39 you appear for sentence having pleaded guilty to a charge of injuring with intent to injure.1

[2]        I am about to explain my sentencing decision to you. You may now again be seated for the time being, I will tell you when to stand again, thank you.

Facts

[3]I begin first by outlining your offending.

1      Crimes Act 1961, s 189(2)—maximum penalty: five years’ imprisonment.

R v HANARA [2025] NZHC 2482 [28 August 2025]

[4]        You are a patched member of the Mongrel Mob. Your offending came to light in the context of a number of police operations into the Mataura Chapter of the Mongrel Mob gang.

[5]        On 27 April 2022, you, with other Mataura members of the Mongrel Mob were at an address in Mataura identified as the “Mongrel Mob pad”. The victim, a current patched member, had told the president he wanted to leave the gang. The president did not accept that. Serious and unprovoked violence against the victim then followed. Members of the gang, including you and prospecting members, started punching and kicking the victim.

[6]        At various times during the assault, weapons were used by other Mongrel Mob members. A steel chair was used to hit the victim across the head, rendering him unconscious. The sergeant of the Mongrel Mob used a claw hammer to repeatedly strike the victim on his rib and chest area, causing internal injuries and broken ribs. The victim was placed on the back of a utility truck, rolled in an old carpet and delivered to Gore Hospital by you and another member of the gang. Upon returning to the pad, the vehicle was washed down and tape that was applied to the vehicle was removed. The president ordered you and the other members involved in the assault to burn your clothing in a fire at the pad.

[7]        The victim suffered a skull fracture, punctured lung, broken ribs, broken teeth, along with head lacerations, bruising and swelling. It took some time for the victim to regain full health, but it is reported he made a full recovery.

Impact on victim

[8]        The impact of the victim’s injuries cannot have had anything other than a profound impact on his life. As remarked by Mr Lucas, the victim’s injuries speak for themselves.

Starting point

[9]        I turn to the sentencing process. In sentencing you, I have to have regard to the purposes and principles of sentencing.2 I have to hold you accountable for the harm you have caused to the victim,3 I have to denounce you conduct in which you were involved,4 and I have to deter you and other persons from committing the same or similar offending.5 The sentence also has to reflect the seriousness of your offending and it has to be consistent with other sentences imposed for offending in similar cases.

[10]      I have to set a starting point for the injuring with intent to injure charge. I am to apply the guidelines in a case called Nuku v R.6 That adapted a test that was first set out in another case called R v Taueki.7 Between them, the two cases identify things that, if present in offending, constitute an “aggravating” feature that makes the offending more serious. The cases also identify “mitigating” features that reduce the seriousness of the offending, but none of those are present here. As set out in Nuku, the offending is then sorted into different categories, or sentencing “bands”, which determine ranges of appropriate starting points for sentences.

[11]      I have to determine the seriousness of each of the aggravating factors. I will then decide whether to adjust the starting point down to account for mitigating factors that are personal to you.

[12]      I note at the outset  that  your  counsel,  Mr Lucas,  and  Mr  Brownlie,  for the Crown, are agreed that a starting point of around three and a half years’ imprisonment is appropriate.

2      Sentencing Act 2002, ss 7 and 8.

3      Sentencing Act, s 7(1)(a).

4      Sentencing Act, s 7(1)(e).

5      Sentencing Act, s 7(1)(f).

6      Nuku v R [2012] NZCA 584, [2013] 2 NZLR 39.

7      R v Taueki [2005] 3 NZLR 372.

Aggravating factors

[13]      I consider there are six matters that significantly contributed to the seriousness of your offending. These matters, evident from the facts as I have summarised them, are:

(a)the prolonged and unprovoked nature of the violence;

(b)pre-meditation which was present to a moderate degree;

(c)the serious injuries to the victim, although your physical assault did not cause the most serious of the injuries inflicted;

(d)the attack to the head;

(e)the involvement of multiple attackers; and

(f)the involvement of members of a criminal gang.

[14]      The combination of these factors, several of which are overlapping, is, in my view, particularly grave. It means that your offending falls within what the Court of Appeal, in Nuku, described as Band 3 offending.8

[15]      Band 3 offending attracts a starting point of between two years and five years’ imprisonment. Similar cases may assist me in determining the appropriate starting point within that range, but the overriding focus for me, in sentencing you, is the guideline judgment, not cases applying the guideline judgment. As the Court of Appeal remarked in L v R, there is a risk of upward sentencing creep and a lack of consistency in decisions applying a guideline judgment if judges are guided by subsequent  decisions  rather  than  the  guideline  judgment  itself.9    That  said,     Mr Brownlie has referred me to a number of cases involving sentencing for injuring

8      Nuku, above n 6, at [38(c)].

9      L v R [2021] NZCA 297 at [18]. The Court of Appeal’s discussion of upward sentencing creep in L v R was in the context of sexual offending for the R v AM (CA27/2009) [2010] NZCA 114, [2010] 2 NZLR 750 guideline decision, however I see no principled reason why that reasoning should not also apply in respect of Nuku and Taeuki.

with intent to injure. I have had regard to those cases, but I primarily focus on the Court of Appeal’s guidance in Nuku.10

[16]      Mr Hanara, the nature of your attack on the victim was grave. It was not so grave as to justify a starting point close to the five year maximum. There is no evidence to show that you were responsible for the most serious of the injuries.11 But, you were present and you were participating for the duration of a serious group assault.

[17]      Having regard to the gravity of that offending, I find  a starting point  of  three years and six months’ imprisonment.

Background and personal circumstances

[18]      I turn now to personal factors to consider to what extent the starting point should be adjusted.

[19]      The Crown does not seek an uplift to account for your previous criminal convictions. I agree with Mr Lucas that they are relatively historic, and no uplift is required.

[20]      You entered a guilty plea. The timing of your plea was not early in relation to when the charges were initially laid but the circumstances which led to your guilty plea are such that counsel recognise a 25 per cent discount is suitable. I agree that a discount of that nature is appropriate having regard to changes that occurred in your representation, apparently outside your control, and also to the fact you pleaded promptly to the recently amended charge.

[21]      Mr Lucas then sought a further discrete deduction of 10 per cent on account of the injuries you suffered while remanded in prison. I am informed you were assaulted by other members of the Mongrel Mob as a result of talking to the police. It was a very, very serious assault. You suffered, as identified in the summary of facts for the defendants who attacked you, a number of injuries: a concussion with memory loss; a

10     R v Harder [2025] NZHC 1321; Kaiwai v Police [2024] NZHC 2491; Hammond v R [2021] NZHC 1064; and R v Hamilton [2019] NZHC 956.

11     R v Harder, above n 10, at [13].

large amount of swelling to your face, including eyes, cheeks and lips; a laceration to your tongue; a bleeding nose; grazing to your forehead and face; and swelling and pain to your chest wall.12 To that list of injuries, you have added in discussion with the probation officer who wrote your pre-sentence report, an injury to your knee which makes walking difficult on occasion. Mr Lucas describes you as now constantly looking behind your back when in the common areas in prison.

[22]      Mr Lucas identifies s 8(h) of the Sentencing Act 2002 as a reason you should be given a deduction on account of the assault and injuries you suffered. Under s 8(h) I must take account of your particular circumstances that mean the sentence that would otherwise be appropriate would be disproportionately severe for you. Mr Lucas submits your time in prison has, by reason of the assault, been much more difficult and traumatic than for a normal offender. Mr Lucas referred me to a number of sentencing decisions, predominantly involving defendants whose general health deteriorated in prison, where considerations of mercy were found to apply.13 I view those particular cases as significantly different to yours.

[23]      I recognise that coming from the particular gang context you did, and through dealing with the police as frankly as you did on your arrest, your imprisonment alongside fellow gang members was likely to involve a severity disproportionate to that experienced by others. I do consider a modest discount, which I am going to put at five per cent, is appropriate on that basis.

[24]      I do not consider it appropriate to allow any greater deduction on account of the particular incident and the injuries you suffered while in prison. In this regard I note the reasoning of Wild J in Wilton v Police.14 Wild J found the very serious assault Mr Wilton had suffered in prison was a matter for the prison authorities to address and not something appropriately taken into account under s 8(h) in the circumstances of that case. I do recognise that in some cases a severe beating may have lasting significant implications in relation to the severity of a sentence, for instance through a

12     R v Harmer-Elers [2024] NZHC 3178 at [148]–[153].

13     R v Luce [2007] NZCA 476; Whiteford v R [2020] NZCA 130 at [39]; and R v Crime Appeal 293/92 (1993) 10 CRNZ 397 (CA).

14     Wilton v Police HC Wellington CRI 2010-485-000057, 29 September 2010. See also R v Shirley

[2009] NZCA 509 at [20]; and R v Ogaz [2007] NZCA 45.

permanent deterioration in the defendant’s health, but I do not discern in the injuries you suffered that level of consequence. I recognise also that in some situations the risk of violence from other inmates may lead to segregation and the effective denial of rehabilitation options, but that again is not your case. I therefore set the discount on account of the impact of these matters on you at five per cent.

[25]      The credits I am therefore allowing against the starting point of three and a half years, are 25 per cent for the guilty plea, and five per cent, having regard to the assaulting injuries. These result  in  a  term  of  imprisonment  of  two years  and  five months.

Sentence

[26]Mr Hanara, would you please stand.

[27]      Mr Hanara, on the charge of injuring with intent to injure, I sentence you to two years and five months’ imprisonment.

[28]Please stand down.

Osborne J

Solicitors:

Crown Law, Invercargill

Copy to:
Josh Lucas, Barrister, Christchurch