Warning: This includes descriptions of extreme violence and torture

Kidnapping victim Kayla Pawa was tortured with a blowtorch, beaten with a baseball bat and instructed to dig her own grave during her nearly month-long gang abduction last year.

Today one of the men responsible for her suffering, Carlos Harris, has been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, with a mandatory prison term of four years.

During the abduction, Pawa was kept at a series of secret locations across Auckland and Northland and subjected to violence in the hope she would be persuaded either through fear or force to show them how to raid her partner’s online cryptocurrency stash.

Harris, otherwise known as C-los Duzit, has been in custody since he turned himself in after being the subject of a high-profile manhunt last July following Pawa’s escape from a car boot in Tikipunga, Whangārei. He pleaded guilty to one kidnapping charge earlier this year.

The first inspection of the country’s strictest prison unit – reserved for the most dangerous and complex prisoners – has found the regime is unnecessarily rigorous at times and long stints in social confinement have a “huge” impact on inmates.

The Prisoners of Extreme Risk Unit (Peru) at Auckland Prison has been described as the “SAS of prisons”. It was set up in 2019 after the Christchurch terror attacks to house the terrorist responsible and was made permanent in 2023.

The first inspection of the unit was conducted in July 2023 and found prisoners seldom left their cells and had little human contact, and that this could lead to profound and enduring physical and psychological effects.

young couple found to have been criminally responsible for the dragging death of 18-year-old Connor Boyd outside an Auckland Central nightclub in 2022 can now be identified for the first time after declining to elevate a years-long name suppression battle to the Supreme Court.

They are manslaughter convicts Kaiya Shute and William Allister Grace.

Shute’s latest battle for permanent name suppression ended last month, with the Court of Appeal rejecting her bid. However, she was given 20 working days to consider whether she would challenge the Court of Appeal decision. The deadline lapsed this evening.

Grace, her now ex-boyfriend, did not seek continued name suppression. However, the courts had until now barred him from being named because doing so might have led to Shute’s identification.

A man with a significant criminal history who randomly stabbed two young Burger King employees - including a 16-year-old who needed life-saving surgery - had been suffering methamphetamine-induced psychosis.

The symptoms, including voices and delusions, have persisted to the point where the man continues over a year later to be treated for schizophrenia.

The diagnosis of defendant Ethan Simon, 27, was discussed at length during two subsequent hearings over the past two weeks as Manukau District Court Judge Janey Forrest considered what sentence would be appropriate for someone dangerous to the community but with persistent cognitive and mental health disabilities that make prison a less-than-ideal solution.

The judge settled on an end sentence of three years and nine months’ imprisonment - down significantly from the 11 years and nine months he would have faced without any reductions. Her sentence announcement was paired with criticism that the mental health and criminal justice systems had let Simon down in the past.

A young woman who was imprisoned earlier this year after a jury found her guilty of contributing to the death of 18-year-old Connor Boyd outside an Auckland Central nightclub has lost a third bid for name suppression.

But she cannot yet be named while her lawyers consider whether to pull stumps on the years-long battle or to try one more appeal, this time with the Supreme Court.

In a 45-page decision released today, the Court of Appeal also rejected her bid for a reduced prison sentence.

One of the key reasons that defendants seek name suppression in New Zealand is because of the vitriol and hate directed at them by members of the public.

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This is inevitably on social media but also can be directed to them personally, their families, their friends and employers. It is personal. It is threatening. They genuinely fear for their safety.

It occurred to me that New Zealand culture includes those who publicly vilify offenders. Offenders are not protected by the law in the same way that innocent victims are. This offends the rule of law.

The man who kidnapped, raped and murdered Lower Hutt teenager Karla Cardno will have a number of short releases into the community to organise bank and transport access cards ahead of a possible release.

Paul Joseph Dally murdered Karla in 1989.

The 13-year-old was riding her bike home from her local shops when Dally snatched her and dragged her to his house.

The man who murdered and dismembered Auckland mum Carmen Thomas before burying her remains – interred in concrete-filled plastic containers – in the Waitākere Ranges has appeared before the Parole Board for the first time.

There, Bradford James Joseph Callaghan opened up about the “volcano of emotions” that led to him killing Thomas in her Remuera flat, that he meant no “disrespect” when he cut her body into eight pieces days later and how he “did everything not to get caught” in the weeks that followed.

He also claimed he wished he had been “caught straight away” – and apologised to Thomas’ family.

Prisoners in three units at Auckland Prison were denied their minimum entitlements for up to nine months, the Office of the Inspectorate has found.

• The investigation found that 107 prisoners were likely subject to solitary confinement for more than 100 days, and 24 men for more than 200 days.

• A lawyer has labelled the treatment as “inhumane”.

• The Department of Corrections said it has accepted the recommendations to ensure ongoing monitoring and assurances that minimum entitlements are being delivered.

A special investigation has highlighted inmates at New Zealand’s only maximum security prison are being denied their minimum entitlements.

Last January, Stuff revealed some prisoners at Auckland prison were being locked in their cells for up to three days at a time - breaching human rights, with lawyers, the Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International concerned for the welfare of inmates at and were urging Corrections to address the issue.

“Unlocking men for an hour every two days is inhumane” barrister Emma Priest, who represents some of the affected men, said.