Judge slams gang ‘code’: Mobster jailed over attack outside KFC

• Author: Ric Stevens
• Published date: 26 January 2023
• Publication title: Daily Post, The (Rotorua, New Zealand)

“People in this country are free to go about where they wish,” Judge Russell Collins said when sentencing a Mongrel Mob member for an attack on a Black Power rival that injured three people in a Hastings street

Vinnie Freeman Herewini, 32, appeared for sentence in the Napier District Court yesterday charged with the aggravated robbery of Papakura Black Power member James Rivers, and assault with a weapon.

Herewini, the captain of the Mongrel Mob in Flaxmere, was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

The sentencing of a co-offender and fellow mobster, Charlie Paeora Whiunui, for the same offences was delayed. The court was still dealing with him.

Rivers was sitting in his car outside the Hastings KFC branch waiting for his order about 9am on October 7, 2020, when Whiunui and Herewini arrived in their vehicle.

Rivers was wearing a hoodie with Black Power insignia, a blue hat, and has clear facial tattoos showing his gang affiliation.

Rivers was out of his car when the two mobsters confronted him and told him to leave.

When he refused, Whiunui and Herewini armed themselves with a tyre iron and a golf club.

The ensuing attack was in front of the KFC and in full view of members of the public on Heretaunga St West.

Whiunui and Herewini hit Rivers with the golf club, which snapped after repeated blows.

Rivers drew a knife and stabbed both attackers.

Whiunui was cut in the face below his left eye. Both mobsters later sought treatment at Hawke’s Bay Hospital.

After the mobsters left, Rivers picked up his food from the drive-through window.

He later accepted treatment from an ambulance...