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The Court of Appeal has reserved its decision on an application by a pair involved in the shooting of a Wanganui toddler to have their sentences reduced.
Tyrone Temappi Box, 19, and James William Challis, 21, got seven year jail sentences after Jhia Te Tua was killed in a drive-by shooting in May last year.
Police said the pair were in the back of the car from which the shots were fired. Both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and being part of an organised criminal group.
In the Appeal Court at Wellington yesterday, their lawyer, Mark Bullock, said the limited remorse shown by the pair could be put down to their youth and an inability to express themselves, The Dominion Post reported.
The shooting was believed to have been a result of conflict between the Black Power and Mongrel Mob gangs in the city.
However, Mr Bullock said Box and Challis were not Mob members or prospects but had links to the gang through family and a rugby league team.
When sentenced in July this year, Justice Warwick Gendall said the poor attitude of the pair was likely to ensure their jail terms would extend well beyond the four-year non-parole period he enforced.
He said they were part of a group of "14 thugs in three vehicles" who drove to the house to exact revenge on Black Power gang members.
There was little remorse apart from the fact it was a child who got killed, he said.
Yesterday, one of the three appeal judges, Justice Mark O'Regan, said the act was more then drunken bravado, as Mr Bullock had suggested.
"It was pretty clear a gun was going to be fired and it was not going to be fired for fun," he said.
Mr Bullock asked for the sentence to be reduced, or at least the period before parole could be considered.
The Crown said the sentences were deserved as both had previous convictions for robbery, and Box for violent behaviour.
- NZPA
