Streets must be safe—Judge

Press, 11 June 1987, Page 14

Streets must be safe—Judge

PA Auckland The streets must be safe for citizens to go about their business, a High Court judge said when jailing tor six years a youth involved in a mugging.

Mr Justice Barker said Morgan Vernon Kahui, aged 18, of Mangere, had committed “a most serious street mugging" which had put a man in hospital with a fractured skull.

Kahui, who appeared for sentence in the High Court at Auckland, had pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated wounding. Mr Justice Barker said the victim could easily have been killed.

Kahui and his associates, a youth, aged 16, and two girls, aged 13 and 14, had approached the man in Queen Street on October 13 last year and robbed him of his wallet containing $lOO. When they fled, chased by the man, Kabul and the other youth grabbed steel pipes from a construction site and threw them at him.

“Kahul’s pipe hit toe victim’s chest, while his associate’s hit the man’s head,” his Honour said. Defence counsel, Mr Mark Edgar, said the four offenders had been living on the streets at toe time of the mugging.