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Offender Databases Tai Rameka

Tai Wairiki Rameka

Alias

.

Offences

Home invasion, multiple rape, assault with intent to commit rape, indecent assaults, assorted other violent offences in the Napier area up to 1995

Victims

.

Offender Affiliations

.

Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1964

Current Location

Prison

Parole/Release Dates

Under preventive detention

Background
From the Sunday Star Times April 29th 2001
THREE of New Zealand's worst sex criminals are planning an appeal to the Privy Council in efforts to have sentences of preventive detention being served by 131 sex offenders ruled illegal. Prominent human rights lawyer Tony Ellis said he was confident domestic law and international human rights legislation had been breached in sentencing the three men to preventive detention, an indeterminate jail term with parole considered after 10 years.

The case, which Ellis expects to be heard by the end of the year, could force the reclassification of 131 prisoners - all men and all but one a sex criminal - handing many finite jail terms. A petition for special leave to appeal is expected to be heard in London in June. The attorney-general has certified that the case involved questions of "exceptional public importance" and that "the grant of criminal legal is desirable in the public interest".

In draft documents to be presented to the Privy Council, Ellis and Bill of Rights expert Antony Shaw argue the errors in law constitute a "gross miscarriage of justice". They are seeking about $50,000 in legal aid and travel costs. Ellis said preventive detention sentences were based on vague legal wording, breached the presumption of innocence and constituted arbitrary detention. "Put bluntly, preventive detention assumes that once a person is guilty, he will always be guilty."

The men are Tai Wairiki Rameka, Anthony James Harris and Tai Rangi Tarawa. Rameka has a previous conviction for the sustained knife-point indecent assault of his former de facto partner in 1994. Rameka was sentenced in Napier in 1996 to preventive detention for rape, 14 years' jail for a second rape and two years' jail for aggravated burglary and assault with intent. The charges relate to a four-hour knife-point attack on a neighbour in 1995.

His "human rights" case can be found here

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Corrections and Additional Information
We endeavour to make this database as accurate as possible, but we are at the mercy of whatever information we can find in various online and offline archives. We rely on the public - that is, people like you - to fill in the gaps that we cannot. If you wish to submit additional information or a correction to this file CLICK HERE . Privacy: Trust policy is that all sources are treated as strictly confidential unless we are explicitly told otherwise. If you wish to see a file removed from this database certain conditions must be met by the offender set out HERE Note that this does NOT apply for those that are the primary offender in a murder, rape, or any sexual offending involving minors. We do not enter into correspondence regarding the guilt/innocence of offenders. Such correspondence is not responded to, especially if the offender concerned has a number of prior convictions

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