Hamilton man threatens whānau member, ‘I’m going to kill your children’

Temuera Paul punched the victim several times and threatened to kill her children.

A woman and her children were left traumatised after her cousin punched her multiple times in the face, gouging her eye before threatening to kill her children, yelling “You’re going to be childless”.

A drunken Temuera Paul lost control after getting into an argument with his cousin while at their Hamilton home on the evening of August 19, 2022.

The victim’s children became scared while her sister tried to intervene but Paul, 29, pushed her aside, Hamilton District Court heard last week.

Another victim ran up to him holding her hands wide telling him to calm down, but Paul instead got into a “fighting stance” and began swinging punches at her, some connecting with her face.

The victim’s sister tried to shield her from his punches and the pair fell to the ground. Paul pulled their hair and tried to rip them apart and as he grabbed the victim, his finger gouged her eye.

The fight then intensified.

As he punched her he yelled, “I’m going to f****** kill you”, then grabbed an empty can and used it to hit the side of her head, drawing blood.

Paul, whose mother was visiting from Australia, walked outside and yelled out to her to grab their property from inside.

The victim began locking the doors around the property and called police.

However, Paul climbed on top of her car, then onto the balcony and got into the house through a sliding door.

The victim grabbed her children, aged 5 and 13, and locked themselves in the bathroom while her sister stood, blocking the door.

Paul walked around the house and up to the bathroom door yelling, “I’m going to stab you. I’m going to kill your children. You’re going to be childless”.

He was arrested and later pleaded guilty but failed to appear in court in both September 2022 and October 2023.

Then on November 11, 2023, Paul broke into a Kaianga Ora house, had a shower, and left.

In court, counsel Kane Bidois said Paul was aware prison was the only option as home detention was not available.

Paul, who earlier accepted a sentence indication, had hoped to get a sentence that would be “time served” as he’d been in custody since November last year.

But Judge Philip Crayton ruled the offending was “far too serious to even approach close to that”.

However, Paul had written a letter of remorse and understood that he needed to “make some changes”.

The judge was surprised he didn’t engage with probation and while he was not keen to send him to prison he had no choice.

As for his offending, the judge noted when Paul made his second lot of threats, it happened in front of the children who he knew were in the bathroom.

“That was a vivid and specific threat made to someone who was plainly cowering in the bathroom ... it does carry elements of premeditation and clear malice.”

Judge Crayton told him he had several things to address if he stayed trouble-free, and if he didn’t, his prison sentences would “get longer and longer”.

On charges of assault in a family relationship, threatening to kill, assault with intent to injure, unlawfully being in a building and willful damage, the judge took a start point of 25 months before applying various discounts and jailing him for 22 months.

The judge also granted Paul leave to apply for home detention and issued protection orders for the victim and her children.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.