Jury finds pair guilty of brutal home raid

Two people were convicted yesterday on charges relating to a violent home invasion in Manurewa last year.

Patricia Mahutoto, aged 52, and Christopher Hereora, 27, were found jointly guilty by a jury in the High Court at Auckland of entering the house on October 23 with intent to commit a crime using a weapon.

They were also found jointly guilty of intentionally wounding Robert Rogers, causing him grievous bodily harm, but not guilty of a charge of robbery and not guilty of intentionally wounding Lorraine McEwen, causing her grievous bodily harm.

During the eight-day trial, the Crown said Mahutoto organised a raid on the home of Mr Rogers, her former husband, and Mrs McEwen, his new partner, after becoming enraged at the breakup of the marriage and Mr Rogers' handling of her affairs while she was overseas looking after her sick sister.

Prosecutors told the jury that Mahutoto enticed four men to carry out the vicious late-night beating of the couple by falsely saying that Mr Rogers kept a suitcase containing $40,000 cash beside his bed.

The couple were beaten about the head and both required surgery. Mr Rogers was in hospital for a month.

One man, Illya Monty Waipouri, 32, earlier pleaded guilty to his part in the attack and in May was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment.

Two other men, Peter Anaru Matehaere, 32, and Jay Maui Wallace, 27, facing the same charges as Mahutoto and Hereora, had the counts dismissed part-way through the trial this week.

In a ruling suppressed until the end of the trial, Justice Susan Glazebrook said the prosecution had failed to produce enough evidence linking Matehaere and Wallace to the crime.

During the trial, Mahutoto said she did not hold a grudge against her former husband and would not have done anything to hurt him.

She denied claims he made while giving evidence that she had once tried to run him over in a car while he was waiting for a bus and, on another occasion, steered a car he was a passenger in towards a power pole.

Hereora did not give evidence but the court heard of an interview with police in which he said he had acted as a driver and lookout during the raid.

The jury of six men and five women took four hours to reach the verdicts.

Justice Glazebrook convicted Mahutoto and Hereora and remanded them until next month for sentencing.