Police evict Kaikohe squatters

Police evicted a group of Maori occupiers from a disused furniture building in Kaikohe, allowing the property's new owner to finally take possession four months after buying it.

About 10 police went to the two-storey, 700sq m former furniture store in Broadway yesterday to evict about 15 members of a group known as Nga Uri o Tupoto Maori.

They had occupied the building since Australian property investor Glenn Hannah bought the premises at a bank mortgagee sale for $80,000 in April. Some were living in it.

Kaikohe police would not comment on the eviction, saying the issue was in the hands of court bailiffs.

Mr Hannah said soon after police had left the building that the eviction had been peaceful with no violence, although one woman had begun shouting and screaming before being removed by police.

Police later said they had arrested a 54-year-old woman in the town, about half an hour after they carried out the warrant to evict.

The woman later appeared in Kaikohe District Court charged with disorderly behaviour, assault and resisting police.

She was remanded on bail with the condition that she not enter the Kaikohe central business area.

Mr Hannah said police hadn't told him they were going to act.

"They came with sufficient numbers and carried it out on their own."

It was not clear where the occupiers had gone but Mr Hannah said he had invited some of them back to reclaim and take away a large amount of their personal property that was left in the building when the eviction order was carried out.

This included racks and items of clothing, footwear, bedding, drawers, furniture and other personal possessions.

Police made their move on the building after an unsuccessful High Court appeal in Whangarei by Nga Uri o Tupoto on Friday against an earlier Kaikohe District Court decision.

The district court had earlier granted Mr Hannah an eviction order and then turned down the group's request for a stay of proceedings. It was this decision that was appealed against unsuccessfully in the High Court at Whangarei.

Group members, who included a woman whose late husband used to own the building, claimed they had native title and tangata whenua status over the land on which the building stood.

They maintained during court hearings that this title and status overrode any other property law and title, and allowed them to stay.

Their interest was in the land, the group said, not the building itself.

Mr Hannah said the episode and court hearings had cost him a lot of money. "It's put me in a position where I'm financially stressed"

He intends to clean up the building and put it on the market for lease.

"I'll see what sort of a response there is but if there are no takers, I've got plans to start a business," he said.

- NZPA