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The family of Emma-Jane Kupa, an 11-year-old fatally knocked from her bike by an angry and intoxicated drug-using driver, wants her killer given a longer sentence. 

“It’s not even justice,” Emma-Jane’s mother, Shannon Davis, said yesterday. 

“It’s pretty much just a slap in the face,” she said, talking about the prison sentence of four years and five months handed to Terina Pineaha for Emma-Jane’s manslaughter. 

Pineaha, a 34-year-old mother of five, fatally hit Emma-Jane on January 30 this year. She was sentenced in the High Court at Napier last Friday. 

The court was told that she was over the drink-drive limit, had been using methamphetamine and was driving at nearly twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road in a residential part of Flaxmere, Hastings, when she struck Emma-Jane. 

Terina Pineaha during her appearance in the High Court at Napier for sentencing over the manslaughter of Emma-Jane Kupa. Photo / RNZ 

The girl’s death was witnessed by her 15-year-old sister, who was riding a scooter alongside her. 

Pineaha was enraged by the idea that her boyfriend may have been having an affair and had just come from his house, where she deliberately drove into another woman’s vehicle three times. 

Shortly before hitting Emma-Jane, Pineaha rear-ended a van at a roundabout and then narrowly missed another car as she drove away. 

She also left the scene after hitting Emma-Jane. 

The High Court was told that Pineaha had 29 previous convictions, mainly for dishonesty. 

“It [the sentence] is pretty much saying that it’s all right to do manslaughter,” Davis told ��һ�ǿ�����. 

“You’re only going to be looking at four years for her 29 convictions. 

“Pretty much my daughter’s life was worth nothing.” 

Tributes were left to Emma-Jane at the spot where she was killed. Photo / Rafaella Melo 

Since the sentencing, Emma-Jane’s family has launched an online petition calling for “real justice for Emma-Jane” and an increase in Pineaha’s sentence. 

By Monday afternoon, it had gathered nearly 2000 signatures. 

“If she would at least have got six [years], we would have been able to, you know, move on,” Davis said. 

“Six years is a fair enough time, but four is just a kick in the face.” 

The online petition calls for the Crown Law Office, which prosecuted the case, to appeal the sentence. 

Such an appeal would have to be made in the Court of Appeal. 

Davis said that lawyers had told the family that any such appeal “is not going to be easy”. 

But Emma-Jane’s relatives say the family is “broken” and its community deserves justice. 

“Please stand with us and demand the sentence be increased to better reflect the seriousness of the crime and protect future tamariki,” the petition says. 

When Pineaha was sentenced by Justice Dale La Hood, the Crown prosecutor, Clayton Walker, sought a starting point for calculating her sentence to be set at seven to seven and a half years. 

Pineaha’s counsel, Philip Ross, argued for a starting point of six years plus an uplift for several driving, wilful damage and offences committed on the day Emma-Jane died. 

Justice La Hood began with a starting point of seven years, uplifted it by three months for Pineaha’s criminal history, then deducted 25% for her guilty plea. 

He gave a further discount of 15% for her personal circumstances, which included a childhood exposed to alcohol, drugs and violence, including a short time in state care, her battles with addiction and for remorse. 

After the discounts were applied, he came to an end sentence of four years and five months, with no minimum non-parole period. 

Pineaha’s release date will be determined by the Parole Board. 

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 ��һ�ǿ�����’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 frontline experience as a probation officer.