KEY POINTS:
Four teenagers arrested following two vicious assaults on Auckland's North Shore faced new charges when they appeared in court today.
Harlem Haunui Kirton, Jono Paul Wilson, Ruaumoko Taiapa and Clinton John McGinty all appeared together in North Shore District Court and had their name suppression lifted.
Kirton, Wilson and Taiapa, all from the North Shore suburb of Glenfield, have already been charged with four counts of aggravated robbery.
Today Kirton, Wilson and Taiapa were jointly charged with four counts of grievous bodily harm with intent to cause harm.
Kirton was also charged with common assault.
McGinty and Kirton were jointly charged with injury with intent to injure.
A fifth teenager charged in relation to the incidents, a 16-year-old from Piha, west of Auckland, who has name suppression, appeared in North Shore Youth Court yesterday.
The five teenagers were arrested last week following two attacks on young couples in the North Shore region in the early hours of January 15.
In the first of the two attacks, a 20-year-old woman's eye socket was fractured and one of her fingers broken and her 25-year-old partner struck in the head after they were allegedly hit with a softball bat as they sat in a car at Milford Beach at 1.30am.
In the second attack, on Lake Rd, Takapuna about 4am, another couple, also aged 20 and 25, were allegedly set upon by a group of men, who pulled up in a car beside them.
The woman in the first attack fled by swimming across a river inlet in darkness to the Beach Rd home of JP Pat Sampson.
All four teenagers in court today were remanded in custody. Wilson, Taiapa and McGinty will reappear in court on January 29 for a bail hearing.
Kirton was stood down until this afternoon and was also due to reappear on January 29 for a bail hearing.
- NZPA
