High Court judge replaces Te Ahu Belle's jail term with home detention for attack on tourists

The German couple were sleeping when they were set upon by Te Ahu Belle and Glen Inglis. Photo / File

A young Northlander has managed to persuade the High Court that he should have been sentenced to home detention rather than jail for the aggravated robbery of two French tourists.

Te Ahu Belle, 20, was armed with a stolen hammer in one hand and a beer bottle in the other when he woke the visitors sleeping in their campervan about 1.20am on April 24 last year and demanded money.

He had stolen the hammer and other items from a parked car that evening.

Belle was accompanied to the campervan by Glen Inglis, 19, who punched the male tourist twice in the head and pushed him.

The female tourist handed over $320 before both the accused fled on foot.

For his part in the crime, Belle was sentenced by Judge Greg Davis in the Whangarei District Court in January to two years and seven months in jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated robbery, one of theft and another of receiving stolen property.

Inglis was sentenced by Judge John McDonald, who fixed a starting point of two years and nine months on the lead charge of injuring with intent to injure, and ended with nine months' home detention.

Belle filed an appeal in the High Court at Whangarei against his sentence on the grounds it was manifestly excessive and pointed in particular to the disparity between his sentence and that of Inglis.

His lawyer, Tracy Spencer, said the starting point of five years fixed by Judge Davis was too high and there was an excessive uplift of four months on the charge of receiving when one month would have sufficed. She said the discounts for Bell's youth, rehabilitative efforts and remorse were insufficient.

Justice Kit Toogood agreed, saying there was no principled basis upon which the difference in starting points could be justified.

"There is also the consideration that the core principle underlying recognition of a guilty plea is that a defendant will receive a reasonable discount for acknowledging responsibility for offending. What has occurred to Mr Belle does not reflect that policy," he said.

Justice Toogood quashed Belle's prison term and instead imposed a sentence of four months' home detention.

While sentencing Belle, Judge Davis said the aggravated robbery was a blight on the North and on Dargaville. The tourist industry, he said, was built on New Zealand's reputation of being clean and green and a friendly destination.