An offender who left his home detention address to attend to “mob business” will spend the rest of his sentence in prison.

Aaron Pierce Tuterangiwhaitiri, 30, left his address several times and was given multiple warnings about complying with his sentence before probation officers charged him with three breaches of home detention.

He appeared before Judge Gordon Matenga in the Napier District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to the breaches.

Tuterangiwhaitiri was sentenced in April to 7.5 months of home detention on two charges of assault with intent to injure and one of assault on a person in a family relationship.

People on home detention wear an ankle bracelet, which sends an alert when they leave their house and monitors their movements via the global positioning system (GPS).

Judge Matenga said Tuterangiwhaitiri had last appeared before him on July 20 and had been given an opportunity to show that he could comply with home detention.

“While I appreciate that you did try ... sadly you did not try hard enough,” the judge said.

The court was told that Tuterangiwhaitiri had passed a drug test, and he was no longer swearing at probation officers and was being more respectful in his dealings with them.

.However, the judge noted several times when Tuterangiwhaitiri had left his home detention address in Napier, including making one trip to the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere.

When asked for an explanation, he said it was “on mob business”, the judge said.

The distance between Napier and Flaxmere is about 20km.

Judge Matenga said Tuterangiwhaitiri’s home detention had been imposed as an alternative to 15 months in prison.

Offenders sentenced to less than two years in jail generally serve half their time, and sometimes it can be converted to home detention.

After giving Tuterangiwhaitiri credit for the part of the sentence already served, Judge Matenga resentenced him to six months in prison on the assault charges.

He sentenced him to one month in prison for the home detention breaches, to be served concurrently.

Tuterangiwhaiti had unpaid fines of about $1500, which were remitted.

References to “the mob” in Hawke’s Bay are generally considered to mean the Mongrel Mob, which has a strong presence in the region.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.