Now 20, the gang member, who has been assessed as having an “extremely high” likelihood of reoffending, appeared in Auckland District Court this week as a judge decided that protecting the community from him was as important as ever.
He was sentenced to nine years and two months’ imprisonment for 11 crimes accumulated between September 2022 and New Year’s Day this year.
“Being incarcerated has not deterred you from offending,” Judge Kevin Glubb told Cashell after spending a significant chunk of the afternoon reading out summaries of the various crimes.
His criminal record was disconcertingly long for someone so young age, even before he pleaded guilty to the most recent crimes, the judge said. He noted that the pre-sentence report writers didn’t seem to be holding out much hope for Cashell to reform his ways.
In addition to his likelihood of reoffending, he has been assessed as continuing to pose a “very high risk” of causing harm to others.
Police chase, bail, armed robbery
Court documents state the crime spree began in the early hours of September 10, 2022, when Cashell and four other young men – all aged between 15 and 19 – arrived in Mt Albert in a stolen Subaru and tried to steal a Toyota.
Police arrived midway through the second theft attempt and Cashell, driving the stolen Subaru, fled at speed. He ran through two stoplights before abandoning the car and running. Officers quickly caught up with him.
“The defendant offered no reasonable explanations for his actions,” authorities noted in the agreed summary of facts for the case.
Auckland resident Te Whetu Cashell has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to a series of violent jewellery store robberies and prison attacks ranging from 2022 to 2024.
A week and a half later, about 5.20pm on September 20, Cashell was on bail when he and seven others forced their way into a Stewart Dawson’s Jewellers at the Westfield St Lukes Shopping Centre in Morningside.
The store was closing, with staff tallying up the day’s sales behind locked doors, when the gang began smashing display cabinets and grabbing jewellery.
The group of what appeared to be teenage boys were wielding batons, metal pipes and other weapons, a witness told the Herald.
“The actions of the offenders were observed by members of the public who were still shopping in the mall, some of whom moved towards the offenders to confront them,” court documents state. “The offenders responded to the threat by moving menacingly towards the witnesses.”
They then ran back through the mall to the getaway vehicle – another stolen Toyota. The heist was filmed on CCTV and by witnesses.
Bystanders continued to chase and confront the group, with a forklift driver briefly managing to block their car. One person was seen on video jumping onto the car’s boot.
“During the ensuing melee, three of the offenders were left at the scene and were forced to flee on foot while the remaining five offenders departed in the motor vehicle,” documents state.
The stolen car was later found a block away from the mall with blood splattered down the side and abandoned jewellery lying beside it.
Police recovered a vehicle on Taylors Rd, Mt Albert, after the robbery of a jewellery store at St Lukes shopping centre, in which Te Whetu Cashell took part. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Authorities said 322 items were taken in the heist and have not been recovered. The business lost $374,000.
Fear, shock and anger
Among those who witnessed the St Lukes robbery was a mother who told the Herald her children, then 7 and 10, were afraid to go shopping as a result.
“I was shocked, my kids were crying and I stood there traumatised and speechless,” she said. “I rushed my kids and ran back to Kmart where I settled them down with some of the toys I bought them.
“It was horrific for them to see. They kept asking me, ‘What’s happening, Mummy?’ and told me, ‘I want to go home,’ bawling their eyes out.”
In a victim impact statement submitted to the court, one shop attendant said it had been only her second week at the jewellery store. The incident changed her life forever.
“It’s a miracle that my colleagues weren’t injured,” she said in the statement, which was not read aloud in full but was referred to by the judge. “I didn’t want to return to work. I was given a few days off and handed in my resignation upon return.”
Witnesses talk to police outside Stewart Dawson’s Jewellers at the Westfield St Lukes Shopping Centre after the raid in September 2022. Photo / Rachel Maher
None of the victims attended the sentencing.
In the wake of the high-profile heist, some officials expressed frustration and dismay at what they characterised as a troubling trend.
“I feel that this is a sign that the justice system has lost control,” Mt Albert Business Association member Catherine Goodwin told RNZ at the time, explaining that businesses were losing faith in the justice system’s ability to protect them. “Youth crime is escalating [and] cross-agency social services are not operating effectively.”
Tomahawks, crowbars and DNA
Two more jewellery store heists followed in quick succession.
At 4.30am on September 22, 2022, Cashell and four others arrived at Northwest Shopping Centre in Massey in a vehicle that had been stolen from nearby Henderson.
The group, which is alleged to have included a 16-year-old and three assailants who were never identified, smashed through glass entry doors and a security gate before splitting into two groups inside the shopping centre. Cashell forced his way into a Michael Hill Jewellers store and began prying open safes and smashing cabinetry while others pilfered a Sunglass Hut.
Northwest Shopping Centre in Massey was raided by Cashell and others in September 2022. Photo / Google
“The group then ran through the shopping centre towards the stolen vehicle, dropping jewellery along the way,” court documents state.
The group successfully fled the scene in the same stolen vehicle, but Cashell was later identified after his fingerprint was found on one of the security grilles. The 16-year-old’s fingerprint was found on the jewellery store counter, documents state.
The exact amount of damage and value of the stolen items was not calculated before the sentencing hearing, but Judge Glubb said he had no doubt the loss would have been significant.
Four days later, Cashell was with a group of eight others who arrived at Hamilton’s popular Base Shopping Centre about 11.30am. They ran through the mall brandishing hammers, crowbars, tomahawks and other items as they made their way to a Michael Hill Jewellers next to the food court, where children and families were having their Sunday lunch.
Thieves at the Michael Hill at the Base Shopping Centre in Hamilton smashed cabinets and stole jewellery in broad daylight as stunned onlookers watched. Te Whetu Cashell has admitted he was among the group.
“The staff and other customers inside Michael Hill Jewellers ran from the store in fear of the defendant and his co-offenders wearing face coverings and bearing hammers and the like, which were being used to smash the glass display cabinets,” court documents state.
The smashing was loud enough that some mistook it for gunfire, heightening the sense of fear, prosecutors said.
As had happened at St Lukes, bystanders tried to intervene.
One person had their phone knocked out of their hands while trying to film the group. Others were punched and pushed to the ground. Cashell was filmed charging a member of the public with his elbow raised as if to strike the person, before stepping away as he fled.
The group left the shopping centre at speed in another stolen Toyota, but Cashell had again left forensic evidence behind – both DNA and fingerprints.
When he was arrested four days later, authorities found numerous items of jewellery and watches in his possession. Some of them still had price tags attached.
In all, $500,000 worth of items were taken.
A shop worker at the mall told the Herald that Michael Hill employees were left shaking and crying, and another mall worker was on the ground shaking after the incident.
Shopper Roeland Koridon said he was having lunch with his children in the food court when he heard an “almighty bang” and saw an elderly man hit with a hammer.
“The hardest thing was, we were with our kids,” he said. “It was so scary because of the fact there were little kids all around.”
In victim impact statements, several Michael Hill employees said they now suffered anxiety when going to work. A worker who was pregnant at the time described the behaviour of the robbers as “disgusting” and said she couldn’t believe what she was seeing: “kids” willing to “ruin their futures for something shiny”.
Manslaughter convicts stabbed
Cashell’s offending appeared to pause for more than a year after he was ordered to be held at Mt Eden prison while awaiting trial on the robbery charges. But something changed late last year, when he was charged three times in four months with attacks on fellow prisoners that included the use of shivs, or improvised prison knives.
During the first attack, in October last year, Cashell targeted manslaughter convict Angelo Thomsen as he played cards in the prison dayroom. Court documents state co-defendant Junior Puia, who has also pleaded guilty but awaits sentencing, sat down beside Thomsen then nodded to Cashell before both began attacking the victim from behind.
“Cashell uses his left hand to hold the victim’s head and repeatedly stabs the victim to the right side of his neck with a shiv-like object,” court documents state. “At the same time, Puia repeatedly punches the victim to the left side of his head with his right fist.”
Angelo Junior Thomsen stood trial in the High Court in Auckland charged with the 2021 murder of Brian James. Jurors instead found him guilty of manslaughter. He was repeatedly stabbed in the neck by fellow prisoner Te Whetu Cashell while awaiting sentencing. Photo / George Block
After Thomsen slumped to the ground and tried to protect his head, Cashell switched the shiv to his other hand and began stabbing him on the other side of his neck. Both men kicked Thomsen multiple times in the face before Cashell threw the shiv to the ground.
“Cashell and Puia walk off together holding their hands in the air in a celebratory fashion before shaking hands and embracing in a hug,” court documents state.
About a month later, on the morning of December 1, Cashell was charged with common assault after what appeared to be a pre-arranged fight in the prison yard. After the fight ended, the victim was knocked to the ground by others and stabbed repeatedly. Cashell then walked up and delivered more blows to his body and face.
“The victim was able to run away and the fracas concluded,” authorities noted in court documents, adding that it could not be determined which of the man’s many injuries were specifically caused by Cashell. “The victim suffered multiple puncture wounds along with scratches, cuts and bruises from the series of assaults he was subjected to and required hospital admittance.”
The final attack occurred on New Year’s Day this year after Cashell had been moved to the maximum security Paremoremo Prison on Auckland’s North Shore.
The victim this time was longtime inmate Lopeti Telefoni, who was found guilty of manslaughter in 2021 after stomping fellow prisoner Blake Lee to death.
Lopeti Telefoni was found guilty in 2021 of the manslaughter of fellow inmate Blake John Lee. Telefoni was attacked in prison in January by Te Whetu Cashell. Photo / Michael Craig
Telefoni was playing chess with another inmate when Cashell pulled a shiv from his waistband and began attacking Telefoni from behind with two other inmates, court documents state.
In a game of cat-and-mouse, Telefoni repeatedly ran from the group then was cornered and suffered more injuries. Cashell stabbed him in the upper torso, close to his neck, and then stabbed him repeatedly in the back as he fled a different corner of the dayroom.
A Corrections officer later found a sharpened plastic tip wrapped in cloth.
‘Grim’ childhood, dangerous young adult
Because Cashell’s offending was so varied and in different jurisdictions, the 20-year-old was joined in court last week by three prosecutors: a Crown representative from Hamilton, one from Auckland and a police prosecutor handling his multiple driving and stolen vehicle offences.
Auckland-based Crown prosecutor Samara Wakefield sought a starting point of eight years and six months’ imprisonment for the lead charge of wounding Telefoni. The Hamilton prosecutor, meanwhile, said the mall robbery would have a seven-year starting point had it been considered on a standalone basis, given the violence against people who tried to intervene.
Aggravated robbery and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm both carry maximum sentences of 14 years’ imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Claire Robertson acknowledged that the Hamilton incident was the most violent of the robberies but argued that her client did not foresee that others with him would lash out at bystanders. Judge Glubb, however, disagreed.
“It’s a joint enterprise,” he said. “Members of the public have stepped forward to prevent what is clearly a very concerning situation ...
“I don’t think he can sit there and say, ‘I’m not responsible for something someone else did’ ... when they were working in concert entirely.”
A group of armed thieves, including Te Whetu Cashell, were filmed looting a jewellery store in Hamilton's The Base shopping mall in September 2022.
Robertson asked that her client’s sentence be reduced by 45% due to his guilty pleas, his deprived upbringing and his youth, noting that a “crushing sentence” would hinder rehabilitation efforts at an age when defendants are more susceptible to positive life changes.
“He realises he doesn’t want to keep going backwards and forwards through that [prison] door,” she said. “He doesn’t want this to be his life going forward.”
A report into her client’s troubled background, she said, “makes for very grim reading”. He grew up lacking a role model in an unstable home environment marred by violence and substance abuse. He estimated to the report writer that he had cycled through 32 Oranga Tamariki placements during his childhood. He eventually found brotherhood in gang life, he said.
He had been in and out of youth justice facilities since he was about 16, with multiple aggravated robbery and burglary cases, the judge noted. He had also been involved in prison riots.
But despite that history, Judge Glubb agreed that youth and his horrific background were factors he needed to consider. He allowed most of the reductions requested by the defence and declined a request by the Crown to impose a minimum term of imprisonment, noting that the already substantial sentence of nine years and two months for someone so young would already serve the purposes of deterrence and denunciation.
“That is a long sentence but it reflects the serious nature of the offending,” the judge said, expressing hope that he wouldn’t see Cashell again.
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.
