Police update Grey Lynn shooting. Video / Michael Craig
Destry Joe Watts, 18, has been sentenced for being an accessory after a shooting in Grey Lynn, Auckland.
Maxwel-Dee Repia, 18, was killed, and three others injured in the September 5 incident.
Justice Graham Lang sentenced Watts to two years’ intensive supervision for his role.
After a shooting in an inner-Auckland neighbourhood that left three young men seriously injured and a fourth person dead, 18-year-old Destry Joe Watts drove the alleged gunman from the scene.
He then buried the gun, a long-barreled .22-calibre rifle, in a planter box at his partner’s house. Police wouldn’t find it until two months later.
The defendant, who turns 19 this week, appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing today after pleading guilty this month to being an accessory after the fact to the quadruple shooting.
However, another teenager has maintained his not-guilty plea to a charge of murder and awaits trial later this year. As such, the media is limited in what it can report about the incident to protect the remaining defendant’s fair-trial rights.
Police previously reported Maxwel-Dee Repia, 18, was fatally shot on the evening of September 5 last year in Grey Lynn, following what was described as an ongoing “neighbourhood dispute”.
Destry Watts appears in the Auckland District Court following the death of Maxwel-Dee Repia in Grey Lynn in September. Photo / Dean Purcell
Repia died at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the chest, while three others between the ages of 19 and 20 were taken to hospital.
One of the survivors was put in a medically induced coma and underwent multiple surgeries as a result of a bullet that punctured his nose and travelled into his neck, near his spine. Another was shot in the chin, and a third survivor was treated for a chest wound.
Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin told media at a press conference the day after the shootings resentment had simmered between the two groups, possibly as far back as March last year. The ongoing dispute had escalated earlier that day with property damage before an “altercation” that led to the gunshot wounds, he said.
After witnessing the gunshots, Watts approached the unoccupied vehicle the wounded men had arrived in and smashed the rear passenger window with his elbow, according to a summary of facts Watts agreed to as part of his guilty pleas.
He then got into his own Mercedes-Benz and allowed the alleged shooter to get into the passenger seat “to enable [him] to avoid arrest”, documents state.
“The firearm used was also placed in the Merecedes-Benz and driven away from the scene.”
Police investigate the scene in a Grey Lynn neighbourhood in September 2024 after a shooting resulted in one fatality and multiple injuries. Photo / Hayden Woodward.
Police arrived a short time later and cordoned off the neighbourhood, but both defendants were gone by that time.
Watts was arrested two days later in Te Atatū, charged initially with being an accessory after the fact to murder. Police added a charge of possession of an offensive weapon upon finding a hunting-style knife in a sheath down the front of his shorts.
The charge was later amended to being an accessory after the fact of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a crime punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. That’s because he was not aware anyone had died until the next day, the judge noted.
Accessory to murder would have carried a punishment of up to seven years.
“The fact that Mr Watts was prepared to drive [the co-defendant] and the firearm away from he scene may possibly be explained as a panic-stricken reaction to what had just occurred,” the judge noted during a hearing earlier this month. “It would not be regarded particularly seriously on a stand-alone basis.
“However, the decision to bury the firearm in the planter box was a considered one that Mr Watts made in the knowledge that it would thwart the police investigation that he must have known would inevitably take place given the fact that people had been shot and badly injured.”
Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney acknowledged in court today Watts, who has been in custody since the shooting, has already served the punishment aspect of his sentence. But she described a complete lack of insight into the offending that persists with the defendant and suggested he serve intensive supervision rather than immediate release on time served.
Police investigate the scene in a Grey Lynn neighbourhood last September. Photo / Hayden Woodward.
Defence lawyer John Corby agreed intensive supervision was appropriate. He informed the judge he had read aloud a victim impact statement from Repia’s mother to his client before sentencing.
“It did have an effect on him,” Corby said. “I think it would have an impact on anyone.”
Justice Graham Lang agreed the teen’s lack of insight into the incident was troubling. He ordered a sentence of two years’ intensive supervision.
“You believe your intentions to have been noble,” the judge said, noting Watts told a pre-sentence report writer he would do it all again if he were in the same situation.
“Unless you’re closely supervised over the next few years, it’s virtually inevitable you’ll be back before the courts.”
The brief hearing started with a victim impact report from Repia’s mother, read aloud by the prosecutor.
She described frequently staying up late at night to grieve because it would not be fair to do so in front of her two younger children. She is no longer able to do part-time work at the dairy where she was employed because of the grief, she said.
On the day of his death, her son had a fresh haircut in anticipation of a job interview and had recently joined the Hibiscus Coast Raiders league club.
“He was really trying to change his life,” she said. “He had his entire life ahead of him. I’m very angry and heartbroken.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
