The court was told that at 5am on August 9 last year, Whaanga and Sulusi Kidman went to the house of their victim with a female associate to talk about a debt he owed them.
It was originally thought the offending was gang-related but Judge Bridget Mackintosh said this was not necessarily the case and it was “just a private matter”.
After speaking to the victim outside his house, and after he refused to get in their car, the pair set about punching him in the head and stomping him when he was on the ground.
The man suffered injuries to his face, neck, ear, eye, and chest. He was also rendered unconscious for a while.
Judge Mackintosh said the disputed facts hearing had not determined the part each played in the attack, but who had done the punching and who had done the kicking or stomping “doesn’t make a lot of difference”.
To Whaanga, she said that a victim impact statement showed the man attacked still had concerns about what might happen after Whaanga was released from custody.
Whaanga reassured the judge that nothing would.
“It’s over,” he said.
To Sulusi Kidman, Judge Mackintosh said it was a “nasty beating”.
“You don’t resolve issues and disputes in this way. It just puts you in a revolving door in and out of Mangaroa,” she said.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison on Mangaroa Rd, Bridge Pa, near Hastings, used to be known as Mangaroa Prison and sometimes is still called that.
Kidman’s counsel, Hagen Neumegen, earlier raised the possibility of home detention instead of prison for his client.
“I don’t think we’re going to be going there, Mr Neumegen,” the judge said.
Kidman is the son of convicted methamphetamine dealer Laki Sulusi, who died in 2020.
