Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Krishan Dick-Karetai, 24, was convicted of attempted murder by the Supreme Court in Dunedin.
A father has told of the horror of seeing his son with a bullet hole in his head and fighting for his life.
Krishan Ranui Dick-Karetai, 24, appeared before the Supreme Court in Dunedin on Thursday for conviction on charges of attempted murder.
Since his victim, Hemi Tahuri, had a one percent chance of survival after Dick-Karetai shot him, the charge came as close as possible to murder, Judge Rachel Dunningham said. She sentenced Dick-Karetai to six years and 11 months in prison.
On October 15 last year, police received a report of a shooting on Coast Rd in the coastal town of Karitane of Otago, about 35 kilometers north of Dunedin.
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The court heard that Dick-Karetai had not accepted that a brief relationship with Missy Parata was over. He harassed her via social media and was entered from her house twice. On the day of the incident, she told him “I don’t want you” and urged him to leave her alone as he repeatedly called and texted her.
Dick-Karetai then went to the house of Karitane van Tahuri, Parata’s friend. He pulled into the driveway and honked his horn in an attempt to lure Parata out.
The couple withdrew into the house. Parata called the police.
Dick-Karetai then approached the front of the house, raised a loaded .22 rifle, and fired through the closed glass door. The court heard that Dick-Karetai “had panicked” and raised the gun so that it “went off”. The bullet hit Tahuri in the forehead.
The court heard from several Whanaus of Tahuri, including his father, who thanked the police and the judiciary.
Tahuri was a strong and independent young man who was admired by his siblings, his father said. Tahuri senior left work at 5pm on October 15 when he received the news that “will haunt me forever”.
Visibly upset, he told the court it will never leave him to see his injured son for the first time, specifically the bullet wound between the eyes. A surgeon told the Whanau that Tahuri probably wouldn’t survive.
“Who would do this to our son?” the father asked the court.
He turned to Dick-Karetai and told him he was a coward and a criminal. “You’ll have to live with this for the rest of your days.”
“You will also be judged by God.”
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
The coastal town of Karitane in Otago, 35 kilometers north of Dunedin.
Missy Parata told the court that she and Tahuri had been seeing each other occasionally for ten years. During a breakup in 2020, Dick-Karetai started visiting her.
That relationship ended, Parata said, but Dick-Karetai harassed her, leading to the events of October 15.
“I will never get the sound of the gunshot out of my head,” Parata told the court.
She said she saw Dick-Karetai grinning after he fired, “Like you accomplished something.”
Parata held Tahuri’s head on her lap as blood poured from the gunshot wound. She tried to stop the flow. “He died right in front of me,” she said.
Parata urged him to keep breathing: “I whimpered as I tried to get him back to me.”
She told the court that when Dick-Karetai shot Tahuri, “It’s like you shot me too.”
“If (his) heart stopped. † † mine too.”
Parata said Tahuri was now living in a rehabilitation unit in Christchurch. He found stimulation exhausting, she said, and could only interact with visitors for 15 minutes. He struggled with his speech and had a large scar on his head and one on his neck from the tracheostomy.