Kaui’s lawyer Leighvi Maynard urged the judge to impose another sentence of home detention as recommended by the probation service.
Prosecutor Steve Manning said the Crown wouldn’t oppose it if the judge felt it was sufficient.
Mr Manning accepted Kaui had spent considerable time in custody after her arrest and had since been compliant on electronically-monitored bail for about the past 18 months. She had ongoing work, which was also in her favour.
But Judge Bolstad was concerned home detention had previously been ineffectual and that Kaui was not currently willing to attend a locally-available eight-week residential drug rehabilitation programme.
Speaking from the dock, Kaui credited her time on remand in custody for positive changes she had since made to her life.
“Last time I didn’t go to jail and it’s been a big wake up call for me.
“If I had got out (been granted bail immediately) I probably would have gone home and reoffended again, but going to jail (on remand) gave me a lot of time for my body to heal, to open my eyes, and look at the reality of my children not being there. It also gave me the relationship back with my kids”.
Two of Kaui’s adult children were in court to support her.
Asked by the judge for their views, they spoke of their disdain for their mother’s offending and how it had affected the family.
Kaui’s son said the offending had driven him away but since being remanded in custody, Kaui had made positive changes, which had brought him back to her. She was more family-oriented and focused on her grandchildren. He was now willing to visit Kaui as often as he could.
Kaui’s daughter said things were “really, really hard before” as she had been the one who had to support her mother — she had no one else.
“Jail time really helped her (Kaui), it helped all of us too — to kind of get an understanding of stepping into her shoes of what she was going through beforehand.
“Jail time made her (Kaui) a hell of a lot better this time around than last time. She’s made heaps of changes. We’ve finally got our siblings back this time around and she’s been awesome,” Kaui’s daughter said.
Judge Bolstad said that input had given her the necessary insight and confidence to impose home detention.
Calculating the sentence, the judge set a starting point of two years, nine months imprisonment for all the charges, then uplifted it by two months for the previous offending.
There was a full 25 percent discount for Kaui’s guilty pleas and 10 percent discount for her remorse and motivation to deal with her issues.
There was a further seven months discount for time spent on EM-bail.
Having calculated an end-sentence of 16 months imprisonment, the judge converted it to eight months home detention,
She agreed to wipe Kaui’s fines debt of about $5000, substituting it with an extra two weeks on the sentence.
