Tui Letele was just a teenager when she left her abusive home and met her husband-to-be, who would become the president of the Auckland Mongrel Mob at 19. She shares her story in this abridged extract from her son Dave Letele's book. 

I started smoking and drinking when I was 11, and I left home when I was 14. Mum became an alcoholic, and then I saw the abuse from all the different men — so-called "uncles" — and in the process, I got abused, so I left, and I never went back. This was in the 1970s. 

My childhood was just like Once Were Warriors. When I saw the movie, I cried, because that was my life. The beatings. Being molested. The drinking... that was my mother. It was true for a lot of Māori. It's still going on today because no one's bothered to break the cycle. 

We lived in Benneydale, in Te Kūiti. When we were young, we had an ambulance driver living beside us, and he and his parents would feed us when my mum would go off. It's funny, because there are no good memories of that house, but I always go back there whenever I go home. 

I moved to Hamilton and then a mate and I hitchhiked up to Auckland, and that's where I met my husband — Big Dave. We were just kids. He was 14 and I was 15. He wasn't in the gang then. Big Dave joined the gang when he was 15, and by 16 or 17 he was Sergeant at Arms, and at 19, the President. 

Tui and Dave Letele with their children Vicki (top centre) and partner Leah, and brother Dave. Photo / Supplied 

My children were taken to a lot of Mongrel Mob parties, but they were never mistreated. They might have seen guys waiting in the car with their patches on, but that's as far as it went. 

I was 19 when I had Little Dave, 20 when I had Vicki, and 32 when I had Meripa. That age gap between our children was because Big Dave went to jail, so our three children had different upbringings and different experiences with us as parents. 

When the kids were little, we shuffled around between Auckland and Hamilton — it was either with my mum in Hamilton or Big Dave's family in Māngere. Little Dave was 5 when Big Dave went into prison. After he got sentenced, I went back to Big Dave's parents' place in Māngere, and the whole bloody church was there. It wasn't a good scene. They called me and Big Dave "the devil" and told me to get out. They all turned against me. I felt so alone. 

I didn't really have anywhere to go. I went around to my mate's place, but it was no good for my kids. Big Dave's parents decided to move to Australia after he was sentenced. There was a lot of shame from their community because he went to prison, and they decided to leave New Zealand with some of their younger children who were still in their teens. 

Vicki was easygoing, but Little Dave was a handful, so I asked his grandparents if they could take him with them. They loved Little Dave. 

To cope with the situation, I started drinking and partying with my mates, because that's what you did when you were in that Mob scene. Not only that — you had to get a lot tougher. I became a functioning alcoholic, and I would party all night and then go to work the next day. I would drink every day. It was no good. I'm not making excuses for sending him away. I thought I made the right choice at the time. 

I wasn't shown how to raise kids, and I wasn't raised in a loving, caring, safe environment. You can't give your kids what you weren't shown. We were all teenagers — we didn't know anything. 

I really didn't like my mother at all when I got older, but when she got sick, and I found out about it, I went back to Hamilton. 

Dave Letele with sister Vicki. Photo / Supplied 

She had all these people in her bedroom at home, so I kicked them all out and took her up to Hamilton hospital. She was diagnosed with cancer, and then she got pneumonia and had a stroke, so that was it. I ended up staying for a month, sleeping on the floor, and taking care of her. 

Big Dave had the kids while I was at the hospital, and one Friday I went home to see them all. I was supposed to go back to Hamilton on the Sunday, but on Saturday I got a feeling, and I decided to drive back early. As I got to Taupiri Mountain my windscreen misted over, and I thought, "She's either gone or she's going." I got up to the hospital and my mother just looked at me, and she died. She was 52. 

When Big Dave went to jail we split up. He got a mate to serve me the divorce papers. I said, "You cheeky bastard!" and I chased him up the road. There was no way I was going to sign them then. But eventually, I did sign them, and we got divorced. I'd still go and visit him in prison, even though I had a boyfriend at the time. 

Big Dave's parents raised Little Dave for five years. But they really didn't smack him, and he became a spoiled little s***. He had to have a can of Coke, and either a pie or chips waiting for him, every day, after school. 

Whenever I got money, I would go over to Australia, and when he was about 10, I brought Little Dave home. His grandparents asked me to because he was getting to be too much for them. He would have massive tantrums. When he got back to New Zealand, that's when he got introduced to the kung fu shoe. 

Dave and Vicki Letele as children. Photo / Supplied 

I thought our kids needed to know that if they were naughty, there were consequences for their actions. But, unfortunately, their mum and dad hadn't learned that yet. 

When Little Dave came back you could see he wanted his dad. He knew I loved him, but I think he wanted to know that his dad loved him, too. But at the time Big Dave had another woman on the scene, so it was difficult. He'd hooked up with a prison officer when he was in prison down the line, and she'd come back to Auckland with him. It wasn't long before I chased her away though. He was my man. We remarried a year after he got out of jail. 

After we got back together we moved around Auckland for a bit, and then we moved into Big Dave's older brother's place in Mission Bay. Ula was very successful and he'd bought this mansion on Patteson Ave. I never wanted to go there because it would give my kids false dreams, like we were rich, when we weren't — we were flat broke. 

Ula had moved to Singapore for work, and he wanted someone to look after his house, so we lived there with his younger brother Lei. 

We found living in Mission Bay a huge struggle. Even though Big Dave and I both worked as courier drivers, the wages didn't cover the kids' college costs or cover our taxes, which is why we got into hydroponics. Big Dave still dabbled with the Mob, but it got to the point where he said, "They're not moving forward." So he left, and we got regular jobs, but it just wasn't cutting it. 

We were so behind in tax. The more you worked, the less you got. My kids had school shoes, fees — and even though the kids were working and we were working, it just wasn't enough. We wanted a way to get some extra money and we knew we could easily earn it by growing weed. 

Ula came back from Singapore and wanted his house back, so we moved around again, eventually ending up in East Tāmaki. Little Dave and Vicki stayed at a flat in Glendowie so they could finish their schooling, but it was hard on them. 

Boxer Dave Letele (aka the Brown Buttabean). Photo / Dean Purcell. 

We grew weed in a little shed out the back, and we expanded the operation to growing in big warehouses, and houses. Then Big Dave got caught and he was sentenced to jail for a couple of years for that, and, fortunately, he got out on home detention. By then we'd moved out to Kaiaua. But we still hadn't learned our lesson, and we started dabbling in methamphetamine. 

We started cooking meth, but then we saw the devastation it was causing. It really was terrible — we couldn't recognise family because of that drug — so we stopped. The money was good. There was so much money coming in, and the kids never went without, but it was just creating too much misery. We just couldn't do it. We stopped, but Dave's brother Lei carried on. 

It wasn't until Big Dave went to the Lord that his little brother decided to change, too. Big Dave wouldn't take any money off him. He said, "I can't take any more dirty money. I want to go straight." So Big Dave went straight, and, four years later, I went a little bit straight. But then my brother-in-law changed, and he just stopped. Back in the day, Lei was lethal. 

If you owed a debt, he was coming. They used to call him the deadly assassin within Paremoremo — he was short but deadly. 

But he's changed — we've all changed. Completely. 

But what did our kids see? One thing my kids didn't see is their father touch me. They never saw abuse. They never saw him raise his voice. We all knew when Big Dave got angry — he wouldn't raise his voice. He never hit me. They could probably count the hidings on their hand that Big Dave gave — it was me who disciplined them. But compared with other kids from our era, our kids did well. They could have gone a lot further, education-wise, but they ended up doing such good work for our community. They all have big hearts and would help anyone out. They had a lot better upbringing than many of their friends, thanks to my mother-in-law, and their aunties. And my mum. 

None of my kids was involved with our hydroponics operations. They didn't even know. But Vicki tracked us down — she had a suspicion. While we were living in Mission Bay we bought a house in Manurewa, but we didn't tell the kids. It looked really nice up the top, but underneath we had set up our hydroponics to grow weed. Me and Big Dave would sneak away to this house, and Vicki would ask where we'd gone, and we'd tell her we were just visiting mates. She tracked us down one day. We were sitting in the lounge in this house, and her face popped up in one of the windows. But we had a trapdoor in the house and jumped down and hid. 

When you love your kids, you've got to show them, and with me, my love is in my actions — it's not physical. Because when you've been molested it's hard to show physical affection — it was for me. It's a lot easier with your mokopuna, because you've been given a second chance to make up for what you didn't do with your own. 

No Excuses by Dave Letele. 

No Excuses by Dave Letele 
• Published by Penguin Random House 
• Out now 
• RRP $40