Reti v Police
[2025] NZHC 877
•10 April 2025
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND WHANGAREI REGISTRY
I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA WHANGĀREI-TERENGA-PARĀOA ROHE
CRI-2024-488-0133
[2025] NZHC 877
BETWEEN JORDAN RETI
Appellant
AND
NEW ZEALAND POLICE
Respondent
Hearing: 10 April 2025 Appearances:
JAG Moroney for appellant
B M Bosomworth for respondent
Date of judgment:
10 April 2025
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF JAGOSE J
This reasons for judgment was delivered by me on 10 April 2025 at 3.30pm.
………………………… Registrar/Deputy Registrar
Solicitors:
Thode Utting, Auckland MWIS, Whangārei
RETI v POLICE [2025] NZHC 877 [10 April 2025]
[1] Jordan Reti appeals the 17 December 2024 decision of Judge D J McDonald in the District Court at Whangārei,1 sentencing him to 17 months’ imprisonment on his guilty pleas to 10 charges of a variety of nuisance offending in Palmerston North. At its partially remote hearing today, I dismissed the appeal with reasons to follow. These are those.
Background
[2] Mr Reti’s offending comprised shoplifting clothing to a value exceeding $750 from chain stores on four occasions between May and June 2024,2 driving while disqualified in June 2024 (a fourth offence),3 escaping police custody in July 20244 and breaching community detention and intensive supervision sentences for family violence offending by both absconding and not reporting in August 2024.5
[3] Mr Reti has an uninspiring criminal record stretching back to 2011 of some 50 convictions for similar offending—shoplifting, driving while disqualified (among other transport-related offending), breaching sentence conditions and family violence—relatively consistently over that period.
Judgment under appeal
[4] The Judge took the escape from custody as Mr Reti’s lead offence for sentencing, imposing a six-month imprisonment sentence, uplifted by:6
… two months for the shoplifting, four months for driving while disqualified, two months for the breach of the community work and two months for the intensive supervision and two months for resentence.
“Standing back” from that 18-month total, the Judge took a start point of 16 months’ imprisonment.7
1 Police v Reti [2024] NZDC 31962.
2 Crimes Act 1961, ss 219 and 223(d). Maximum penalty: three months’ imprisonment.
3 Land Transport Act 1998, s 32(1)(a) and 32(4). Maximum penalty: two years’ imprisonment or a
$6,000 fine.
4 Crimes Act 1961, s 120. Maximum penalty: five years’ imprisonment.
5 Sentencing Act 2002, ss 69(G)(a) and 70(A)(a). Both have the same maximum penalty: six years’ imprisonment or a $6,000 fine.
6 Police v Reti, above n 1, at [12].
7 At [13].
[5] The Judge applied a 20 per cent or three-month discount for Mr Reti’s guilty pleas, “not at the first available opportunity”, uplifted by two months for his previous convictions and another two months for resentencing, resulting in 17 months’ imprisonment.8 Given Mr Reti’s previous sentence non-compliance, the Judge declined to convert that short-term sentence to one of home detention.
[6] For Mr Reti, John Moroney submits the Judge erred by failing to follow the mandated two-step sentencing process and applying excessive uplifts for Mr Reti’s personal circumstances (argued already addressed in the Judge’s start point).
Approach on appeal
[7] I must allow the appeal only if satisfied both there is error in the sentence, and a different sentence should be imposed.9 In any other case, I must dismiss the appeal.10 To be successful, an appellant must point to an error—either intrinsic to the Judge’s reasoning, or as a result of further information submitted on appeal—that is material to exercise of the lower court’s sentencing discretion.11
[8] The measure of error is the sentence be “manifestly excessive”, a principle “well-engrained” in the Court’s approach to sentencing appeals.12 I will not intervene where the sentence is within a range properly justified by accepted sentencing principle; ‘tinkering’ with such a sentence is inappropriate.13 Whether a sentence is “manifestly excessive” is to be assessed in terms of the sentence given; the process by which it is reached will rarely be decisive.14
8 At [14].
9 Criminal Procedure Act 2011, s 250(2).
10 Section 250(3).
11 Khon v R [2024] NZCA 354 at [13], referring to R v Shipton [2007] 2 NZLR 218 (CA) at [138]; Tutakangahau v R [2014] NZCA 279, [2014] 3 NZLR 482 at [30]; and Tamihana v R [2015] NZCA 169 at [14].
12 Tutakangahau v R, above n 11, at [33] and [35].
13 At [36].14 Ripia v R [2011] NZCA 101 at [15].
Discussion
—sentencing process
[9] In reliance on R v Moses,15 Mr Moroney argues the Judge erred in calculating a discount for Mr Reti’s guilty pleas before taking into account Mr Reti’s personal aggravating factors.
[10]In Moses, the Court of Appeal recommended “[a] two-step methodology”:16
(a) the first step … calculates the adjusted starting point, incorporating aggravating and mitigating features of the offence;
(b) the second step incorporates all aggravating and mitigating factors personal to the offender, together with any guilty plea discount, which should be calculated as a percentage of the adjusted starting point.
and emphasised:17
Because the court fixes all second-step uplifts and discounts by reference to the adjusted starting point under this methodology, it makes no difference to sentence length if the guilty plea discount is the last step in the sentence calculation.
Regardless, the Court of Appeal repeated:18
[T]he ultimate question, however, is … whether the sentence is a just one in all the circumstances. When answering it the sentencer should stand back and consider the circumstances of offence and offender against the applicable sentencing purposes, principles and factors.
[11] From those perspectives, I see no error in the Judge’s approach. He has calculated the guilty plea discount at 20 percent of his adjusted 16-month starting point, and incorporated it in a second step with aggravating and mitigating factors personal to Mr Reti. There is no basis to consider the guilty plea discount also should apply to those factors. The Judge’s two-month uplifts each equate to 12.5 per cent of his adjusted starting point, resulting in the Judge’s end sentence five per cent above that starting point at 17 months.
15 R v Moses [2020] NZCA 296.
16 At [46].
17 At [47].
18 At [49].
—uplift for previous convictions
[12] Neither do I see any error in the Judge’s two two-month uplifts for personal aggravating factors. They are not duplicative of the Judge’s cumulative two-month uplifts for each Mr Reti’s breach of prior community service and intensive supervision sentences and in resentencing Mr Reti accordingly for his family violence offending. In so arriving at the Judge’s adjusted starting point, the Judge did not assess the gravity of Mr Reti’s offending with reference to his previous convictions (as may otherwise have been relevant to his culpability or for purposes of deterrence or community protection).19
[13] Distinctly from those elements of the Judge’s adjusted starting point, the Judge also was obliged to take into account both Mr Reti’s offending was committed while he was subject to a sentence and:20
… the number, seriousness, date, relevance, and nature of any previous convictions of the offender and of any convictions for which the offender is being sentenced or otherwise dealt with at the same time …
The Judge’s uplifts precisely are responsive to those mandatory considerations.21 Mr Reti’s previous convictions are numerous and persistent for more than a decade.
—“manifestly excessive”?
[14] Finally, a 17-month imprisonment sentence is well within the Judge’s sentencing discretion for the range of Mr Reti’s offending.22 The Judge applied a two-month deduction on account of totality to reach his start point. But the Judge’s components already accommodated totality, for example, in applying a single two-month uplift for Mr Reti’s repeated thefts. And Mr Reti’s guilty pleas came after multiple appearances over a period of months, in respect of which the Judge’s 20 per
19 See Mitchell v R [2022] NZSC 89 at [6].
20 Sentencing Act, s 9(1)(c) and (j).
21 See Gray v R [2020] NZCA 548 and Stuart v R [2021] NZCA 539 at [15].
22 In relation to escaping lawful custody: Rushton v Police [2023] NZHC 2754 (nine months); Tawhai v Police HC Wellington CRI-2011-485-47, 27 July 2011 (nine months); and Awatere v Police [2015] NZHC 1374 (six months). In relation to driving while disqualified on a fourth offence: Muhinda v Police [2015] NZHC 2024 (eight months); Townshend v Ministry of Health [2017] NZHC 1993 (nine months); Fox v Police [2017] NZHC 573 (14 months). In relation to the sentence breaches: Chapman v Police [2020] NZHC 2108 (two months); and Hikaka v Police [2020] NZHC 716 (two months).
cent discount may be thought generous. The sentence is not at all excessive, let alone “manifestly” so.
Result
[15]The appeal was dismissed.
—Jagose J
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