Shane Monu Te Fotu Tonga, 33, and Manu Hausia, 31, each had backgrounds featuring extreme violence, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.
Hausia was jailed for six and a-half years for attempted murder and other violence charges in 2022 after a knife attack in Oamaru.
The Tongan citizen was living with his then partner in breach of his bail when she called police following an argument.
Hausia put her in a stranglehold and stabbed her in the head and body more than a dozen times with a kitchen knife and scissors, then wounded another person who tried to intervene.
The court heard Tonga had originally been jailed for more than four years in 2016 for a violent incident in Christchurch.
Since then, he had been prosecuted for four prison assaults, the most serious of which occurred in 2017 at Auckland Prison. He and several others set upon a rival gang member, one repeatedly shaking the victim while Tonga kicked him and beat him with a broom.
Judge David Robinson said the defendant had also been convicted of attacks on guards and his sentence expiry date (before today) had stretched out to the end of 2026.
On January 19, Tonga and Hausia were in the exercise yard at the Otago Corrections Facility.
Prison officers since spoke to the Otago Daily Times about a spate of serious assaults that occurred this year, making reference to the ultra-violent Neighbourhood Crips gang.
Tonga has NHC tattooed on his forehead and at a recent Parole Board hearing Hausia was said to have joined an unnamed prison gang which he considered family.
But there was no explicit gang connection mentioned in court.
Hausia’s counsel Sophia Thorburn said only that her client had heard the victim was planning to "jump" him and so launched a pre-emptive strike.
The victim was left bleeding from facial injuries but declined medical treatment and refused to make a statement.
Ms Thorburn said Hausia had limited English.
The judge acknowledged the prisoner’s "cultural dislocation" and accepted he was genuinely remorseful.
Despite Tonga racking up 45 infractions since his stay in custody, his partner wrote a letter to the court saying she had seen a change in him over recent months.
Judge Robinson said the defendant’s gang connections were likely to be problematic but accepted the man missed his family.
Tonga had 15 months added to his prison term while Hausia’s was increased by 13 months.
