Shooting 'poetic justice' says victim

Glenn Bennett, 76, still works at a service station despite his ordeal.

Poetic justice is the way assault victim Glenn Bennett describes the death of a man in a drive-by shooting at Rotorua this week.

Edwin Dale Te Haara was shot in the neck after an argument with a motorist on Tuesday night.

Police believe the shooter was known to Mr Te Haara and the incident stemmed from a long-running dispute between the pair.

Mr Te Haara, 37, moved to Rotorua last year after spending much of his life in Auckland, where he was a member of a Black Power faction and had a history of violence.

In 1995 he was sentenced to seven years' jail for his role in an attack on a 52-year-old man who was sleeping in his car near the Drury on-ramp.

Court reports described how Mr Te Haara and a colleague stopped to siphon petrol from the victim's car.

When they found the man asleep inside, they kicked and repeatedly punched him. Mr Te Haara was wearing steel-capped boots.

The victim suffered 10 skull fractures, a broken cheekbone, facial cuts, memory loss and had difficulty speaking and comprehending language.

After an appeal that reduced his sentence from 10 to seven years, Mr Te Haara tried to apologise to his victim, who rejected it as an attempt to shorten the jail term.

Five years ago, Mr Te Haara was imprisoned again after running down service station attendant Glenn Bennett in Glenfield.

Mr Bennett said Mr Te Haara had paid for $10 of petrol but the pumps were not on prepay and $18 worth went into the tank.

A fight broke out between another staff member and Mr Te Haara over the extra $8.

Mr Bennett, who is now 76 and still doing service station work, was standing by the glass doors when Mr Te Haara got into his car.

"I heard the squeal of tyres and the car came at me. I can remember the glass coming down ... it looked like ice raining down."

Mr Bennett suffered cuts to his forehead and injuries to his leg where screws from the car's numberplate gouged into his flesh.

He was told Mr Te Haara was sentenced to six months' jail for the attack but had not given him much thought since.

On Thursday afternoon, Mr Bennett was contacted by journalists telling him about Mr Te Haara's death.

"It's poetic justice, I suppose. I still have a crook knee out of it, which reminds me of [the attack] every so often."

A relative of Mr Te Haara described him as "a bit of a bad bugger" who had been in a fair bit of trouble throughout his life.

Mr Te Haara was good-natured but had a "really violent temper".

Police investigating the shooting said they did not believe rival gangs were involved.

Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper said there had been an ongoing argument between the suspects and Mr Te Haara for several months, but the cause was unknown.

He urged the male shooter and his female driver to hand themselves in "for their own safety".

The driver of the green Mitsubishi RVR is described as a female of light complexion with shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail. A male in the car had a dark complexion.