No, you can't go to jail

KELLY BURNS/The Dominion Post

GRAND DELUSIONS: Raynor Stephen Kahotea says he wants to start a gang.

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Would-be mobster Raynor Kahotea stashed the rifle that killed Wanganui toddler Jhia Te Tua but his plea to be sent to prison - so he could recruit for a new gang, where he would be "the man" - fell on deaf ears with the judge.

Raynor Stephen Kahotea, 31, was neither a gang member nor a prospect but had "grandiose delusions" about gang life.

When asked by Mongrel Mob prospect Hayden Wallace - the man who has admitted firing the gun that killed two-year-old Jhia in a drive-by shooting - to hide the gun, Kahotea hid it under his bed.

The weapon was later dumped down a bank and has never been found.

Kahotea, who has one half of his head shaven and the other sporting long, dangling dreadlocks, had admitted being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter.

He appeared in the High Court at Wanganui yesterday for sentencing.

Justice Warwick Gendall was told by a psychiatrist that Kahotea wanted to go to prison so he could form a new gang where he would be "the man".

"If it is your wish to go to prison then I will disappoint you," the judge said.

He sentenced him to 100 hours community service and 18 months of intensive supervision, noting he had delusions about gangs.

Kahotea's lawyer, Mark Bullock, said his client had been taken advantage of.

But Justice Gendall said those who aligned themselves with gang criminals could expect to be treated as one of them.

He said two years of open warfare between the Mongrel Mob and Black Power reached a "deplorable height" on May 5 last year when Jhia was fatally shot.

Outside court, Kahotea - who has 57 previous convictions - repeated his wish to go to jail and start a gang.