Child terrorised by axe-wielding man on meth

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A man who terrorised a child in the front seat of a car when he swung an axe through the windscreen during a meth-fuelled rage has been sentenced to intensive supervision.

The passenger was a girl, aged about 10, who screamed in fear as Kade Tuahine held the axe above his head with two hands and stared directly at her before smashing the windscreen.

She suffered a cut to her hand from a shard of the broken glass.

She got out and ran off when the driver — Tuahine’s partner — accidentally reversed into a fence in her panic to flee.

The couple had been arguing and Tuahine was angry when the woman went to leave.

He continued destroying windows in the vehicle, plunging the axe through the rear windscreen.

The 26-year-old was sentenced on Friday in Gisborne District Court after previously pleading guilty to two counts of wilful damage, threatening behaviour and possession of an offensive weapon — the axe.

Judge Turitea Bolstad imposed 18 months intensive supervision. She took into account that Tuahine had spent the past three weeks on remand in custody — the equivalent of serving about one-and-a-half months imprisonment.

The court was told the couple had been in a dysfunctional and erratic relationship for four-and-a-half years. Police had attended previous family harm incidents between them.

Counsel Leighvi Maynard said Tuahine had been using methamphetamine.

In that state, he simply didn’t have the capacity to deal with the situation properly.

A report showed past trauma also contributed to Tuahine’s offending but he accepted his meth use was mainly to blame.

Mr Maynard said that since being in custody, Tuahine had detoxed and was now thinking much more clearly. He had not reoffended and was willing to comply with a sentence of supervision as was recommended by the probation service.

However, Judge Bolstad said intensive supervision was more appropriate.

The judge noted it was she who had refused to readmit Tuahine to bail and remanded him in custody after he previously failed to attend his appointment with a pre-sentence report writer.

Ahead of that, he had been exited form the family harm intervention court for failing to comply with a requirement to attend counselling.

She accepted he was willing to address his issues and that he had good family support. Several of his relatives were in court for his appearance, which was by AV-link from Waikeria Prison. Others in Hamilton were ready to collect him that afternoon, the court was told.

The judge wiped Tuahine’s outstanding fines debt of $1347. Various previous reparation orders remain in place.