“It’s only going to come out for a 187,” the associate told Vaitohi — allegedly a reference to section 187 of the California penal code, which defines the charge of murder.

Vaitohi replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell him yeah, we need this one”.

At last year’s trial, which ended with a hung jury, Jessop’s lawyer dismissed the calls as “vague chat” rather than a “focused, sinister plan”.

Prosecutors had cherry-picked words over hours of conversations to make it sound worse than it was, she suggested.

Priest also argued that prosecutors had misinterpreted “187” to mean murder, even if that is how it is used in California gang culture.

“New Zealand is a long way from the United States,” she said. “We live life a lot differently to the United States.”

Priest said it would be safer to assume, based on Vaitohi’s own explanation in another recorded call, that the term referred only to “ruthless gang” – “r” being the 18th letter of the alphabet and “g” being the 7th.

Green’s lawyers suggested that, to a degree, the lack of self-defence was beside the point, and the judge agreed.

“While Ms Green stands here as an offender, she was undoubtedly a victim first,” defence lawyer Susan Giles said, noting that her client’s significant childhood trauma was compounded by “repeated intimate partner violence” as an adult.

It resulted in a situation, Giles said, in which “trauma is laid upon trauma until the person becomes so psychologically damaged that their responses are not driven by rational choice but by deeply ingrained survival mechanisms”.

1. The Law Association of New Zealand (TLANZ) has been granted leave to intervene in this appeal.

These submissions address two matters of general application for consideration by the Court in addition to those advanced by the applicants:

1.1. The inclusion of two further factors in determining whether leave ought to be given to appeal out of time. These are youth and the risk of impingement on unalienable rights.

1.2. Whether the manifest injustice test pursuant to s 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002 ought to be considered first for young offenders where s 104 of the Act is engaged.

“I f***ed up,” a woman accused of murder told her friend when she showed up on their doorstep with her partner’s blood spattered across her face like freckles.

In the hours after Margaret Jovander Green stabbed her partner Selwyn Robson, the Crown says she visited nearby friends and whānau alluding to what she had done.

Green, 33, is on trial in the High Court at Auckland charged with murdering Robson in May 2025 in the South Auckland sleepout they shared.

In her opening argument this morning, Crown lawyer Aysser Al-Janabi told the jury what Green said to her friends and family about what happened on the day of the alleged murder.

Defence lawyer Emma Priest said her client had stabbed Robson, a “violent” patched member of the Black Power gang but it was in self-defence.

‘Suppression decision was right’

The man’s lawyer, Emma Priest, said the District Court judge had taken into account all relevant factors in coming to her decision to grant the suppression. And that decision was right.

“Unfortunately with his privilege, comes a greater degree of public awareness of his family and also media interest.”

She said her client has been able to make good rehabilitative progress and there was evidence publication would be a “complete barrier” to that continued progress.

As to any romantic partners, Priest said her client was considered of low risk of re-offending and there was no evidence the man would be of harm to a future partner or their children.

• No new photos of Karla Cardno's killer can be published if he's released from jail

• Paul Dally's lawyer sought the order from the Parole Board due to difficulties securing accommodation for him

• The board has also ordered a review of Dally's psychological history.

If the man who has spent more than 35 years in jail for one of New Zealand's most notorious crimes is released from prison he will likely live unrecognised, according to a new ruling from the Parole Board

The board has ruled that current photos of Paul Joseph Dally, who raped and murdered 13-year-old Karla Cardno in May 1989, cannot be published.

The board has also made non-publication orders for the address from which he'd be released from prison to, if parole were granted, and any other relevant information leading to his identification.

Seven Oranga Tamariki workers are accused of bashing two teens - or failing to stop them being bashed - in a tiny phone room at Korowai Manaaki in Wiri.

Prosecutors said the staff had gratuitously assaulted the boys after the teens had barricaded themselves in the two-by-1.5 metre room for more than an hour.

When the staff eventually got the door open, the six male defendants "stormed the booth in quick succession" and when they emerged, the teens appeared slumped over and injured.

But defence lawyers said the staff were using legal restraint to keep themselves and the teens safe in a high risk situation where the boys were destroying the booth, setting off sprinklers and flooding the unit.

Joseph Kirifi, Tapu Brown, Aidan Va, Quentin Schmidt, Susana Sofara, and two others with name suppression are on trial at the Manukau District Court and today pleaded not guilty to two charges of ill treatment or neglect of a child on 23 May 2023.

A father who’s pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his 10-month-old son told police he injured the boy giving CPR.

Te Kūiti baby Mustafa Ali died in 2024 and his father, Mukzameel Ali, 24, was due to begin a trial in the High Court in Hamilton on Monday.

Instead, he pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter, as well as assault with intent to injure, and assault on a family member. The latter two charges involve the baby’s mother.

Name suppression lapsed for Ali - whose occupation on court documents is listed as meat inspector - on Monday and was not renewed by his counsel, Rosalind Brown and Emma Priest.

Kaihau’s lawyer Emma Priest said the shot fired by her client was directed into the roof of the car, and not towards the passenger’s bodies.

She asked the judge to take the man’s addiction disorder, cultural background and the effect of incarceration on his six children into account.

He had “all the hallmarks” of deprivation, she said, with exposure to gangs, violence, drugs and alcohol at a young age.

Judge Belinda Sellars said she would not “turn her back” on the defendant’s background factors, but they were tempered by his offending while on sentence.

For discharging the firearm with reckless disregard and injuring with intent to injure his prison victim, Kaihau was sentenced to two years, eight months’ imprisonment.