Woman's violent history earns her indefinite jail

A 25-year-old Porirua woman with a history of violent assaults - some of the most serious committed in prison - has become the first woman in New Zealand to be jailed indefinitely.

Kino Hoki Matete was yesterday sentenced in the High Court at Wellington to preventive detention. Justice Forrest Miller imposed a nine-year non-parole period after Matete admitted charges including wounding with intent to injure, causing grievous bodily harm with intent to injure and injuring with intent to injure stemming from three incidents.

She was on parole in September 2004 when she attacked a woman she believed had burgled her house with a pocket knife, causing a cut in her arm which required four stitches.

While on remand in June 2005 for that attack, she threw a bucket of boiling water over a woman who had ripped off her "jail mum". The woman was hospitalised with severe burns.

The next month Matete broke a prison officer's arm after becoming enraged by the way the woman asked her to return a pen.

Crown prosecutor Cameron Mander said a lengthy finite sentence was inadequate because of Matete's tendency towards serious violence.

Defence lawyer Val Nisbet said Matete's early life was fraught with difficulty and violence. Her adoptive parents separated when she was 10 and she was a ward of the state at 13. She attended secondary school for only one year before spending years on the street and ending up on youth remand in Mt Eden Prison at the age of 15.

Justice Miller said Matete had 13 previous convictions for violence, including assaulting a police officer, attacking a woman with a crowbar and hitting another woman with an iron bar.

- NZPA