“There are undoubtedly elements of callousness and brutality to your offending,” the judge said, adding that if the stabbing had taken place in front of their son he would have found the killing qualified for a minimum prison term for 17 years. “Luckily… no one else entered the room until Ms. Hai’s mother entered at the end of the episode.”

Emergency personnel rushed to Nazia Hai Te Atatū Peninsula home, where he lived with his mother and her son, around 7:15 a.m. on September 11, 2023, to find the 27-year-old in critical condition. Tutai still had the knife in his hand.

“I already know what I did was wrong,” he told police at the scene.

let’s died the same day while paramedics rushed her to the hospital.

Around 6:45 that morning, Hai confronted the defendant about whether he had sold their child’s missing Nintendo video game console. He responded to the accusation with a “brief verbal spat” which quickly escalated to him repeatedly stabbing her with a knife he took from the kitchen.

The pair began dating in 2012 but were separated and sleeping in different bedrooms at the time of the stabbing.

“Toward the end of the (birthday) evening, there were indications of conflict between the pair based on Mr. Tutai’s distrust of Ms. Hai,” court documents state.

A pathologist later counted seven deep stab wounds, including some to the neck and chest that would have been fatal, and an arm wound described as “potentially fatal.” She also suffered a deep stab wound to the back and four shallower wounds.

“After hearing her daughter’s scream, Ms. Hai’s mother ran towards her and as she did, she saw Mr. Tutai pull the knife out of her body,” court documents state. “She (the mother) then tried to pull her daughter away in an attempt to help her.

“At this time Mr Tutai called the police communications center informing the caller that he had stabbed his ex-partner and that she was dying.”

When police arrived, they told Tutai several times to drop the knife and leave peacefully, but he refused, the summary of facts said.

“Police had to use force to detain and arrest him,” authorities said.

“Scum” vs “big and kind heart”

Hai, known by her nickname Naz, has dedicated her life to her son and recently obtained her real estate license in a step towards building a bright future with him, friends and family. previously said Herald. The former Epsom Girls’ Grammar School pupil enjoyed netball, cooking and visiting family in the far north.

Her friends and family filled the courtroom today, many wearing black hoodies with a glamorous portrait of Hai emblazoned on the back.

“Every day I wake up hoping it’s all a nightmare,” her older sister Shazia Peri said in a victim impact statement.

She described her sister as kind, intelligent, loyal, beautiful, ambitious and hardworking.

“I never understood her relationship with you because you were none of those things,” she said. “You had so many reasons to change for your family. You chose not to.

“You don’t know how to be a man, Jaykob.” You are a scumbag. You will forever be a coward – a gangster who did not deserve my sister in your life.

She expressed her hope that he would remain in prison for the rest of his life.

Hai’s mother said she missed her daughter’s laugh, her smile and her “big, kind heart.”

She recalled the terror of holding a towel to her daughter after the attack, trying in vain to stop the bleeding.

“No child should have to see this,” she said of the aftermath of the stabbing.

The defendant’s youngest son did not appear at the hearing but his aunt read his statement aloud, noting that he still suffers from daily nightmares.

“I’m sad,” said the boy. “I miss my mother. We sleep in bed together and hug each other. She was the best mother.”

Animal abuse, psychosis

During today’s hearing, Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson asked for section 104 of the Sentencing Act to be engaged. The law provides for a minimum prison sentence of at least 17 years for crimes committed “with a high level of brutality, cruelty, depravity or callousness”.

Defense lawyer Claire Robertson acknowledged the brutality of the crime but argued the law should be reserved for even more serious crimes. She sought a starting point of 14 years, with further reductions for his guilty plea, remorse and personal circumstances.

Judge Lang said it was a close call but agreed with the defense that the law should not be engaged. He emphasized to the family present that at the end of the day, Tutai is serving a life sentence so he can remain in prison beyond the 13-year minimum he imposed.

The judge set a starting point of 14 years and six months before allowing a one-year reduction for Tutai’s guilty plea and a further six months for remorse and his difficult childhood that led to drug addiction.

He was sent to live with his grandmother at a young age to protect him from his father’s abuse of his mother, the court heard. The breakup led to anxiety and anger issues, which culminated in outbursts of shoplifting, animal cruelty and fire-setting. Until the murder, his most serious crime was an aggravated robbery in 2013, which resulted in a two-year, eight-month prison sentence.

Tutai started using drugs when he was in middle school and was addicted to methamphetamine while still a teenager. He had been a gang member for several years starting in 2017, but said it was a negative experience because it added to his already troublesome anxiety. The defendant now has a large, square cover-up tattoo on his neck, where gang insignia are often found.

In the hours before he stabbed his ex-partner to death, Tutai said he was hearing male voices in his head – believing they were from the next room – so he armed himself with knives “to get them out”. The two-day bender had left him in a “confused and paranoid state,” he reported.

The defendant self-reported a history of drug use psychosis, having stopped using cannabis a year earlier for this reason. But the judge noted that he had never been diagnosed with a serious and lasting mental illness and intoxication was not considered a mitigating factor.

The judge also referred to a letter of remorse submitted to the court today, which he said could be considered “too little too late”.

The courtroom gallery erupted in a brief fit of screams after the sentence was announced.

“Damn it!” one person shouted at the defendant, followed by another who said: “F*** you!”

“Damn it!” were the last words Tutai would hear from the courtroom as he was led through a side door to a cell, where he would be taken back to prison.

There were no supporters of the defendant there to say goodbye.

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

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