William Hines during his 2002 trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / File
One of the “godfathers” of the criminal underworld has been released early from prison on compassionate grounds.
William Hines was one of the most senior members of the Head Hunters but was convicted in 2017 of running a methamphetamine syndicate, after being targeted in a covert police investigation called Operation Sylvester.
Better known simply as “Bird”, Hines was sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison and despite his advancing years and ailing health, was ordered to serve a minimum of eight years before being eligible for parole.
The sentence was later reduced to 17 years by the Court of Appeal, which also quashed the minimum period of imprisonment because of his poor health.
Hines suffers from type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and end-stage renal failure which requires dialysis every second day.
While he was able to manage his treatment from inside prison at first, according to previous Parole Board rulings, a significant deterioration in his health in 2022 meant Hines needed daily care for his basic needs.
At one stage, Hines was transferred to a hospital where he remained under the 24/7 watch of prison guards.
He asked to be released from prison early on compassionate grounds and in October, the Parole Board accepted that Hines was seriously ill and unlikely to recover.
The Parole Board ordered an urgent report to provide advice on whether Hines could be adequately cared for at home, or whether he needed to live in a facility like a rest home.
The board also asked for a “safety plan” to be prepared, as there were concerns about how unauthorised visits from gang members and other criminal associates would be managed if an early release was granted.
Hines had told the Parole Board he had left the Head Hunters in 2019 and had no contact with the gang since, and believed his mana within the gang would mean they would respect his wishes.
However, unknown to Hines, Corrections staff had to turn away a former associate who turned up unannounced at the hospital.
“There are significant gaps in planning for the ongoing management of his healthcare needs and limited attention to the management of his risk,” the Parole Board said.
“Both need further attention before his release from custody can be safely contemplated.”
The following month, the Parole Board said it was satisfied that both of those concerns had been addressed.
Hines would live at a residential address under the watch of a primary caregiver, believed to be his daughter, who would ensure members of the Head Hunters would not enter the address.
“She was committed to that and was in a position where she would, if necessary, issue trespass notices.”
One of the special conditions of his release is that, for the next five years, Hines is not allowed to leave the address without the approval of his probation officer.
He was released from custody the next day - shortly before his 70th birthday.
A previous Parole Board decision which declined an application for early release on compassionate grounds noted that Hines wanted to “make peace with his whānau as a consequence of his offending history on them”.
His criminal history stretches back to at least 1989, when Hines was caught with a loaded pistol in the lounge bar of a hotel. Pistols are prized in the criminal underworld, a weapon of status.
It was a sign of things to come for the then 36-year-old.
A few years later, he was convicted of kidnapping a man at gunpoint, then torturing him with pliers and an electric drill in a garage, because of a supposed debt.
The guilty verdict came despite the victim refusing to give evidence.
In sentencing Hines to four years in prison, Justice Robertson said no one was above the law.
“You just take the law into your own hands and use whatever is necessary to get what you perceive is your entitlement.”
Five years later, Hines and two other Head Hunters confronted an undercover police officer and held him at knifepoint.
“If you do not prove you are not a cop, then you are not leaving here,” was how Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery recounted the conversation at the 1996 trial.
The undercover officer, whose cover story was running a scrapmetal yard, feigned fury at the allegation but was taken upstairs to his living quarters where Hines and the others searched through his belongings for proof of his identity.
The officer managed to buy some time but was unable to entirely satisfy his captors. “They let him know that he was not off the hook,” said Raftery.
Again, Hines was convicted of kidnapping and jailed for 12 months.
But it was the lucrative profits of methamphetamine which took Hines from menacing standover man to the big time.
He was one of the ringleaders of a network who dubbed themselves the “Methamphetamine Makers Co Ltd”, alongside infamous bank robber Waha Safiti and meth cook Brett Allison.
The trio was planning to split a batch of methamphetamine to yield hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The business partners were busy falling out when police swooped in 2000 following Operation Flower.
Bugged conversations were played at the trial in which Saifiti and Hines were recorded talking about “whacking” people.
“Rest assured, we will not be made to look like fools here,’’ said Saifiti. “We will just whack anybody who needs to be whacked ... Whack him straight on the spot.’”
After the raids across Auckland, police found the remnants of Allison’s lab in Henderson.
The 2000 litres of chemicals involved made it one of the biggest - and most explosive - drug laboratories ever found. It took officials wearing breathing apparatus seven days to pull apart.
Its run-off waste alone contained 150 grams of methamphetamine claimed to be worth $150,000.
Hines was sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiracy to supply.
At the time, police said the Head Hunters network played a significant role in establishing the meth trade in New Zealand: something that plagues the country to this day.
After serving seven years for the Operation Flower drug crimes, Hines managed to stay out of prison until becoming the principal target of a new police investigation, Operation Sylvester, in 2015.
By this time, he sat at the very top of the Head Hunters hierarchy and was revered by gang members as a Godfather-type figure. Despite being in his 60s and riddled with health problems, “Bird” was still feared in the criminal fraternity.
Through surveillance and intercepted phone calls, Operation Sylvester gathered enough evidence to prove Hines was in charge of a group of Head Hunters and associates manufacturing methamphetamine.
Detectives covertly broke into a van, hidden inside a storage unit, where they found 136 grams of meth packaged for sale in ounce bags and surrounded by rice to keep it dry. There were also 9 kilograms of iodine and 33 litres of hypophosphorous acid, both commonly used in the meth manufacturing process.
There was also enough illegal firepower inside the van to start a war: a M1A Springfield semi-automatic rifle, a pair of Heckler and Koch military-style rifles, a Lapua tactical rifle, and a Smith and Wesson pistol wrapped in a blue bandanna – with traces of Hines’ DNA on the fabric.
Hines and his co-defendants pleaded not guilty but were convicted after a High Court trial in 2017, in which the judge was satisfied at least 1kg of methamphetamine was manufactured by the group.
In sentencing Hines, Justice Downs made special mention of the “sinister nature” of the firearms and drugs found inside the storage unit.
“This careful packaging, the nature and collection of articles, and the rental of the unit on the same day as the manufacture of the methamphetamine imply this was the work of an organised criminal enterprise. You led that enterprise,” Justice Downs said to Hines.
“And although you were careful to act from behind the scenes, I am sure you directed this offending … You sat atop an organisation which made a very large amount of methamphetamine and intended to make more.”
The circumstances around the death are being treated as unexplained.