KEY POINTS:
A young man left a paraplegic after a police car chase and shootout was jailed today for 10 years when he appeared in Tauranga District Court.
James Samuels, 20, was shot once in the lower chest when he refused to stop firing a rifle at police officers at Waihi in January.
His girlfriend Yana Poata, 18, who had driven him in a stolen vehicle from Ngongataha near Rotorua to Waihi, was sentenced to six years' jail. She is already serving a five-month sentence for unrelated charges.
The court was told earlier that Samuels had ignored several calls to put the gun down as he walked toward members of the armed offenders squad who eventually stopped the pair at Waihi.
The couple faced seven joint counts of using a firearm against police, one of burglary and one of unlawfully taking a vehicle.
Samuels initially also faced an attempted murder charge but that was reduced to an additional firearms offence.
The couple had pleaded guilty to all charges.
- NZPA
