When Herewini ploughed into an oncoming car one child was thrown from the back seat and crashed into the footwell. She was on life support and underwent several surgeries for brain and skull injuries over the course of weeks. She is likely to be affected for the rest of her life. Both children and Herewini were injured.
On Monday Herewini was sentenced on three charges of driving with excess blood alcohol and causing injury.
Judge Davis said the Matariki Court, which listens to whanau as a court would usually hear lawyers and expert witnesses, helped facilitate access to wrap-around services and consider alternative pathways to sentencing.
"It is not a separate court. It operates within the Sentencing Act and case law. It enables the court to hear from whanau," he said.
Under the court's terms, "I have to arrive at a sentence that denounces what you have done, [requiring] a balancing act between competing objectives such as punishment and rehabilitation."
Herewini's offence could have landed him two-plus years in prison, extended for previous drink-driving related convictions, Judge Davis said. Should Herewini not complete the programme he had already started at Auckland's Odyssey House, he would go to jail until the end of his sentence period.
The Matariki Court was initiated in Kaikohe in 2010 by the late Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson. Concerned that more than half the people in New Zealand's men's and women's prisons were Maori, Judge Johnson thought justice processes were not designed from the Maori perspective.
Under section 27 of the Sentencing Act 2002, it allows an offender's whanau, hapu and iwi to address the court at sentencing and "wrap around" services by programme providers to be considered in the process.
