Relatives of an elderly man who died after being violently assaulted by his caregiver reacted with shock and anger as his killer was sentenced yesterday to 12 months home detention.

Lawrence Hugh Rangiwai, 73, known to his whānau as Larry or Uncle La, died in hospital on August 8, 2021, after suffering a fatal neck injury.

Earlier that day, his daughter-in-law and caregiver Stella Inia Maru, 26, had pushed him into a glass ranch slider.

It was the final act in a sustained assault by Maru on the frail and arthritic cancer patient over about 20 minutes.

She punched him in the head, threw a dining room chair into his back, verbally abused him, choked him with both hands and pushed him out of his chair.

Maru, pregnant at the time, became irate when she arrived home to find Rangiwai hadn’t showered. She ignored pleas to stop from young people at the house.

Two of them went to get her partner — Lawrence Rangiwai junior — from a neighbour’s place.

When he returned his father was on the ground in a critical condition but was still able to communicate what happened.

Maru told ambulance staff she pushed Rangiwai. However, at hospital, she and her partner agreed they should lie about what happened and also get the others who witnessed the assault to lie.

They concocted a version of events in which Rangiwai tripped over a vacuum cleaner.

Maru maintained the lie for more than a year before finally giving it up when confronted with conflicting evidence during a police interview.

She pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to pervert the course of justice and was sentenced yesterday by Justice Grice in the High Court at Gisborne.

From a starting point of five years imprisonment for the manslaughter and a cumulative 12 months for the perverting justice charge, the judge applied discounts totaling 67 per cent — 25 for guilty pleas, 12 for previous good character, five for remorse and 25 for personal circumstances, including children and cultural issues.

That resulted in sentences of 20 months imprisonment for the manslaughter charge and four months imprisonment for the perverting justice charge.

The terms were converted to 12 months home detention to be followed by 12 months post-detention conditions.

The sentence was met with anger and disbelief from some of Rangiwai’s relatives who yelled at Maru in the dock, calling her a “murderer” before leaving the courtroom. Their anger continued outside in a carpark.

In victim impact statements read earlier to the court, family members spoke of their devastation on learning of the assault and that Maru had lied about it for more than a year.

They said they were still trying to process their grief, which was having detrimental effects on them physically and emotionally.

It hurt them to contemplate how terrifying Rangiwai’s last moments must have been. They could not understand why this happened.

One of Rangiwai’s nieces said of Maru: “You do not deserve or will receive any sympathy or forgiveness from me or my family as your selfish acts took away someone from us forever.”

Another niece said, “no sentence could be long enough for such a horrific crime”.

The family described Rangiwai as a much-loved and respected man — whānau and community focused. He was a proud veteran, having served with the New Zealand Army overseas and later, as a firefighter, helped battle the Australian bushfires, heroically continuing even when his arms were burned.

A niece said: “This wonderful loving man had placed his trust in you (Maru) and Lawrence to love and take care of him as he had done for you both. That trust, as it turned out, was sorely misplaced.

“You had been entrusted with the care of your father-in-law. If you needed help all you needed to do was to ask.”

There is no tariff for manslaughter. Sentences have ranged from a discharge without conviction to terms of imprisonment.

The Crown wanted Maru jailed. Prosecutor Cameron Stuart cited cases he said warrant starting points for the manslaughter and perverting charges of six-and-a-half to seven years and a cumulative two-and-a-half years imprisonment respectively.

Stuart urged the court to focus on the summary of facts — what happened to Rangiwai. Maru’s recent claim that she had been coerced to lie, and material filed in support of it, was unreliable.

He said discounts sought by the defence for background and mental health factors were too high. The sentence shouldn’t get within range for home detention, which would be wholly inappropriate for the offending, as would sending Maru back to the same home, dynamics, stresses and risk factors that had apparently caused it.

However, the judge’s decision aligned more with the submissions of counsel Tiana Epati, who urged the court to take a more nuanced approach when looking at comparative cases. She submitted a starting point of four-and-a-half to five years, reduced to four for mental health factors she said lessened Maru’s culpability.

Epati referred to pre-sentence, background and psychological reports.

Maru had been diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder. Matters since childhood had been brewing for her and were exacerbated by her pregnancy, grief and addiction issues, the defence argued.

She felt she had little support in her home duties while pregnant, including caring for Rangiwai.

Maru’s offending was a sudden loss of all self-control. She had since been addressing her issues, including attending a relevant course, and had started seeing a psychologist.

While it was true Maru and her partner’s home life had not been great historically, things had started to change in the past couple of years as documented in reports before the court, Epati said. It was in the best interests of Maru’s children to have her remain in the home.

Justice Grice agreed.