Six-month jail terms over riot

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 5

Six-month jail terms over riot

Five members of the Mongrel Mob gang were jailed for six months, in the District Court yesterday for their participation in a riot at the gang headquarters in Bealey Avenue in January. Judge Fraser, sentencing the five, described the incident as one of violent disorder involving damage to property and which caused fear to nearby residents.

The defendants were found guilty of the charges, and some of additional related or unrelated offences, by the Judge in a reserved decision given last month, after a defended hearing of several days.

They had been remanded to yesterday for sentence.

The defendants were Frederick Walter Bellas, aged 24, Unemployed (Mr C. D. Eason); Marty Fleming Brandt,

aged 21, unemployed (Mr T. M. Abbott); Noel John Walter Kelly, aged 23, a scrubcutter (Mr M. J. Knowles); George Moanaroa Kidwell, aged 21, unemployed (Mr P. B. McMenamin); and George Muru, aged 27, a scrubcutter (Mr T. Sissons). Each defendant received a six-months jail sentence on a joint charge of taking part in. a riot by being members of an unlawful assembly, which disturbed the peace on or about January 30.

The three offenders who received additional cumulative prison terms were Bellas (one month) for assaulting a police officer, Muru (one week) for wilful damage to a police car, and Brandt (one month) for an unrelated offence of fraud last December 18 by using a Post Offive Savings Bank withdrawal

form to obtain a pecuniary advantage.

Counsel for the five defendants, in submissions in mitigation of sentence yesterday, had sought sentences of periodic detention, or penalties short of imprisonment.

Referring to comments by some counsel regarding the defendants’ membership of the Mongrel Mob gang, the attitude oK society to such groups, and reports of gang activities in the news media, the Judge said he was not entering into any judgment on gangs in general or their way of life of members of this gang. He was dealing with them as individual people, each of whom was guilty of a serious offence, and each having the same rights and responsibilities as ordinary citizens.

However, the Judge said in regard to submissions by counsel that the incident was provoked by the police when a gang car windscreen was broken bj r a policeman’s baton, that this ignored the fact that it resulted when the car was recklessly driven forward at the constable, when he walked in front of it. Evidence in the : case had been that the riot occurred after a police patrol's following a car which was speeding to the gang headquarters. When a constable and sergeant alighted to interview the driver the car was driven further into the driveway and the constable had to jump clear, and as he did so his baton broke the car’s windscreen. Bottles and other missiles were then thrown at the police. Mr Abbott, in defence sub-

missions, said the Judge had found that in all probability the windscreen was broken by accident. He submitted, however, that it could be interpreted as a provocative or wilful act, which met reaction from gang members.