ASSAULT ON POLICE

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23812, 4 December 1942, Page 7

ASSAULT ON POLICE

FIVE MAORIS SENT TO PRISON

(P.A.) AUCKLAND. December 3. Five Maoris from the Rotorua district, Rav Reihana, aged 36, and his three brothers, Tim, Rehu, and Micky, aged 31, 19 and 18 respecitvely. with Henry October, aged 18, were sentenced by Mr Justice Callan to-day to six months’ imprisonment lor assault causing actual bodily harm and assaulting, resisting, and obstructing police constables on duty. His Honour said that the cases were unusual. The Maori youth, October, was a brother-in-law of the other four. Another brother. Rahu Reihana, had been ill, and after recovery behaved qucerly, going among the other Maoris and members of his family, saying that he was God, and that he had the power, merely by looking at people, to cause their death. This created considerable trouble among the Maoris, particularly in a forestry hut where the Maoris were accommodated. Because of complaints from a forest ranger, the constables went to the Waiolapu camp to tell the Maoris to leave the hut. “No one anticipated the extremes to which the Maoris would go,” said his Honour. “The constables were unarmed and met very defiant Maoris, who assaulted them.” One constable received severe head injuries. The police left, but returned later when the Maoris again showed fight, being armed with pickets from a fence. Severe injuries were inflicted, and Rahu Reihana died. His Honour said that the Maoris were previously of good character and had acted under the influence of one with religious mania.