��һ�ǿ�����

Warning: Contains distressing content

A man who shot his uncle six times with a shotgun had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication in the weeks prior.

Saul Yalma Maniapoto-Bernsten was charged with the murder of his uncle Cedric Maniapoto and due to stand trial in the High Court at Hamilton this morning, but Justice Timothy Brewer acquitted him of the charge, deeming him insane at the time.

Justice Brewer instead directed that Maniapoto-Bernsten be detained in a hospital as a special patient under the Mental Health Compulsory Assessment and Treatment Act 1992.

“This case is a tragedy for everybody concerned,” the judge told the 30-year-old.

“For you, for your family, but I have to make it clear that your future is one that has to be determined by caring for your mental health ... in a way that keeps the community safe.”

About 3am on March 5 last year, Cedric Maniapoto, 58, left his home in Ohautira Rd, Raglan, after hearing gunshots coming from his sister’s neighbouring property.

She wasn’t home at the time.

Maniapoto drove up the driveway when Maniapoto-Bernsten fired a round, with shotgun pellets hitting the bonnet and windscreen.

A second shot went through the windscreen, with pellets hitting Maniapoto in the chest.

He began to reverse out of the driveway, but his car hit a gate post.

Maniapoto-Bernsten approached the driver’s door and fired two more shots.

As Maniapoto lay over the passenger seat, the second shot got him in the chest area from close range, tracking upwards towards his throat.

Maniapoto-Bernsten then went to the passenger side of the car, opened the passenger door, and fired another shot into his uncle’s face.

The Maniapoto whānau's dog, Napier, turned up at the Te Uku store with a gunshot wound several hours after Cedric Maniapoto was shot dead. Photo / NZ Police

About 7am, Maniapoto’s mother’s dog, Napier, was found abandoned outside the Te Uku store several kilometres away.

Napier was injured after also being shot, but survived his injuries.

When questioned by police, Maniapoto-Bernsten said, “I shot him in the f* face” and believed he’d fired eight shots in total.

Maniapoto-Bernsten was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2017.

From then until the end of 2021, he was held in compulsory care in a hospital on no fewer than eight occasions.

On each occasion, after being medicated, he was released back into the community.

Maniapoto-Bernsten and his father confirmed that he’d stopped taking his medication a few weeks before the shooting.

He told police and psychiatrists that he wanted to kill both his mother and his uncle.

He got a shotgun for that purpose and drove to his uncle’s house on the day of the homicide.

Despite still being medicated, Maniapoto-Bernsten remains convinced that he was justified in killing his uncle, based on false delusions.

Cedric Maniapoto, 58, of Raglan. Photo / NZ Police

In his judgment, Justice Brewer said schizophrenia is a disease of the mind.

“I am satisfied that the defendant was ‘labouring’ under that disease of the mind when he killed Mr Maniapoto.

“I am also satisfied that the defendant’s schizophrenia affected him at the time of the homicide to such an extent that he was incapable of knowing that killing Mr Maniapoto was morally wrong, having regard to the commonly accepted standards of right and wrong.”

Justice Brewer agreed with the opinion of two psychiatrists and Crown Solicitor Jacinda Hamilton that Maniapoto-Bernsten be detained in a hospital as a special patient.

“That means that you will go back to the psychiatric hospital and you will stay there under the care of the staff of the hospital until it’s determined that you are in a state to be released into the community.

“That typically takes years when there has been a homicide because of insanity.”

For him to be formally discharged, he would need sign-off from the Minister of Health.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at ��һ�ǿ����� for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.