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In February 2023, longtime sex offender Johnathan Tamihana followed a French backpacker into a South Auckland reserve as she walked to her accommodation and indecently assaulted her. 

He strangled her when she started to scream and warned, “I have a knife, I can kill you.” 

Eleven months later, he attacked a jogger at the same reserve and attempted to rape her. 

“Please don’t, I have kids at home,” the victim said between screams, but he ignored the plea and continued to restrain her. 

Both disturbing attacks took place during a very narrow window of freedom for Tamihana, who has spent the vast majority of his adulthood in prison. 

The 33-year-old will now be returned to prison indefinitely after a judge in the High Court at Auckland this week imposed a rare sentence of preventive detention. 

“You have not yet ... accepted full responsibility for your past offending or even your current offending,” Justice Geoffrey Venning noted as he announced his decision. 

“You present a significant risk to female members of the public.” 

Preventive detention is considered the last option for protecting the public from repeat offenders who have not been deterred by prison and past rehabilitation efforts. 

It is effectively a life sentence, in which inmates are not released until the Parole Board determines the risk to the public has been reduced. 

Those who convince the Parole Board they have reformed are still managed by Corrections for the rest of their lives and can be recalled to prison at any time. 

Tamihana first went to prison at age 19, convicted of sexually abusing a 13-year-old. 

In the 14 years since then, he has been out of prison only for a total of 24 months – just six months of which didn’t involve parole or some other form of supervision. 

Despite the very small window of freedom, he has managed in that time to add five violence convictions to his record – not including the current two cases – and had multiple police callouts to his home for family violence, Justice Venning noted today. 

“Sanctions ... have not previously served to prevent your ... behaviour,” he said. 

Two psychological reports prepared for this week’s sentencing assessed Tamihana as a high risk of further violent and sexual offending. 

‘You’re forcing me’ 

Had he been given a finite sentence, Tamihana would have faced up to seven years’ imprisonment for the attack on the French tourist, which resulted in three counts of indecent assault and one count of threatening to kill. 

Additionally, he would have faced up to 10 years’ imprisonment for the attack on the jogger, which resulted in a single charge of assault with intent to commit sexual violation. 

According to the summary of facts that Tamihana agreed to when he pleaded guilty earlier this year, the French national was carrying a large backpack with all her belongings around 8.30pm on February 22, 2023, when she entered Ōtara Creek Reserve. 

She was en route to a motel in East Tamaki. 

Repeat sex offender Johnathan Tamihana pleaded guilty to attacking two women in separate incidents at a South Auckland reserve. Photo / Craig Kapitan 

Tamihana spotted her while riding his BMX pushbike around the Ōtara shopping centre and followed her to the reserve. 

“The defendant came up behind her and grabbed her with both hands around her hips,” court documents state. 

“He asked her if she was alone. 

“He then said to her, ‘I want you to be my girlfriend’.” 

The woman tried to push him away, responding, “Go away, please”. But Tamihana retaliated by tackling her to the ground. 

“Stay like that,” he said as he restrained her on the ground and stated explicitly that he wanted sex. 

The woman began screaming, but she was soon gasping for air as he put her in a headlock and began to strangle her. 

Fearing for her life, the victim changed tactics and, instead of physical resistance, tried to stall for time. 

She tried to pack her backpack and get away as he was preparing to rape her but was unsuccessful. 

Tamihana repeated that he wanted the stranger to be his girlfriend, to which she replied: “No, you’re forcing me to have sex with you.” 

After the sexual assault took place, Tamihana walked with the victim back to the road and left on his BMX as she got into an Uber. 

She reported the incident to police the next day. 

Jogger targeted 

Tamihana began following his next victim as she jogged through the same reserve about 6.40am on January 18 the following year. 

“[She] jogged until she reached a dead end in the reserve and then turned around to return to the main path,” court documents state. 

“The defendant, who was still following her, ran towards her.” 

The victim tried to avoid the defendant as he approached and screamed for help, but he managed to tackle her to the ground and climb on top of her. 

“Do you want to have some fun?” he asked as he put his forearm over her mouth to muffle her screams and tried to pull off her hoodie. 

An officer walks through Otara Creek Reserve for an unrelated incident in June 2023. Photo / Hayden Woodward 

After wriggling out from the pressure of his forearm, the woman said she had children as part of her plea for him to stop. When he ignored her, asking her again if she wanted to have fun, she resumed screaming for help. 

Tamihana then grabbed her cellphone and ran away, leaving the victim to run in the opposite direction. 

She called police with the help of a bystander who saw her crying and asked if she was okay. 

‘I feel trapped’ 

Both women watched this week’s hearing via audio-video feeds from overseas locations. Both said in victim impact statements that their lives have been profoundly changed since the attacks. 

“Every time I leave my house – whether I’m going to church, or work, [or] just for errands – I need to remind myself that he is not out there to hurt me again,” the jogger told the court. “Because if I don’t remind myself, I remain uneasy.” 

She is filled with fear when anyone walks past her, she said. 

Johnathan Tamihana pleaded guilty to attacking two women in separate incidents at an Ōtara reserve. Photo / Craig Kapitan 

“This is something I hope no one ever has to go through,” she said. 

Prosecutors read aloud the French tourist’s statement as she watched and wept. Backpacking through New Zealand had been a lifelong dream, and her initial experience seemed almost too good to be true, she wrote. 

But she cut her trip short after the attack, she said, incurring significant expense for the ticket and returning home a broken woman. 

“Night now terrifies me,” she explained. “Men riding by on bikes terrify me. Men in hoodies terrify me.” 

For the past two years, she said, she has “tried to repair what you broke”, but she still can’t go out alone any more. 

“The short winter days are hell, and the darkness is dangerous to me,” she said, explaining that she once suffered a panic attack after her niece hugged her – triggering a flashback to being strangled. 

“I don’t feel safe. I feel trapped.” 

‘Continued denials’ 

Defence lawyer Alex Cranstoun asked the judge for a four-year starting point for the attack on the jogger with an 18-month uplift for what Tamihana did to the tourist. 

She didn’t seek a discount for remorse but submitted a letter of apology to the court to show that her client was interested in getting help. 

She pointed out that during all his time in the criminal justice system, Tamihana received only 20 one-on-one therapy sessions, which were discontinued during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

He hasn’t had a real chance at reform yet, so he shouldn’t be considered so dangerous to the public as to warrant preventive detention, she argued. 

Cranstoun also sought a 20% reduction for her client’s guilty pleas, and between 10 and 15% for his personal circumstances, which included a “significantly chaotic upbringing” in which his father role-modelled similar offending and his mother was an alcoholic and abusive. 

“He was under the influence of alcohol during all of his offending,” the defence lawyer said. “This is the reason he can’t recall all of his offending – it’s not a denial.” 

Justice Geoffrey Venning. Photo / Michael Craig 

Crown prosecutor Jay Tausi took a more sceptical approach to Tamihana’s explanation. 

“While he has pleaded guilty, his continued denials and lack of remorse are significant barriers to effective treatment,” he said. 

The judge agreed. 

He adopted the Crown’s suggested starting point of seven years for both charges combined before imposing a four-month uplift for Tamihana’s prior offending. He allowed two 12.5% discounts for the defendant’s April guilty pleas, which came just one month before his scheduled trial, and for his troubled background. 

It would have resulted in a sentence of five and a half years’ imprisonment but for the preventive detention request by the Crown. 

Justice Venning agreed that a lengthy finite sentence would be preferable if it were to provide adequate protection to society. 

But Tamihana had a clear pattern dating back to 2012 that suggested he wouldn’t stop, the judge determined. 

It included a conviction in 2013 for burgling an accommodation area at the Manukau Institute of Technology, in which he went into a bedroom with a knife and climbed on top of someone who had been sleeping. 

“Don’t scream. I’m from the streets,” he warned, but the victim screamed anyway, and he fled in a panic. 

It’s of particular concern, the judge noted, that Tamihana has been known to carry a weapon at times. 

He noted that Tamihana had been given chances in the past, including being placed in a drug treatment prison unit in 2014. 

He was kicked out after three months, the judge said, after he was suspected of attacking another prisoner. 

In addition to preventive detention, the judge ordered that Tamihana serve at least five years before he is allowed to even apply for parole. 

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.