“I never thought in my life I would hurt someone in this way,” he said in a letter of apology to his second victim. “I pray you find peace. Sorry for what I have done.”
It mirrored, in part, an apology letter he had written to his first victim last year.
‘Stand back or get whacked’
Ngamo was charged with manslaughter in November 2023, six months after a boy racer gathering at an East Tāmaki, South Auckland, intersection attracted about 50 to 100 spectators after it was advertised on social media.
His unregistered blue Holden Commodore would not have passed a warrant of fitness inspection and he was disqualified from driving because of previous traffic violations. That didn’t stop him from doing burnouts in tandem with another vehicle as the crowd spilt into the roadway.
The victim, 17, recalled being surged forward by the crowd before she was hit in the torso by Ngamo’s car and sent airborne. Her infant died less than 24 hours later because of the catastrophic head injury suffered in utero.
Ngamo later posted a video of the incident on his Instagram account with the caption: “stand the f*** back or get whacked”.
He later took down the post after learning of the baby’s death but then posted a warning on a different social media account: “To the people that got hit on the weekend keep these indoors and sort it cause if the pigs come to mine for that I’ll come to yours and smoke you end of”.
In a victim impact statement read aloud at Ngamo’s sentencing last year, the teen acknowledged she should not have attended the event and emphasised that she “never once” blamed the defendant.
Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith, however, was not so forgiving. She described the victim’s statement as very generous but wrong in placing the blame on herself.
“The public are very concerned about this type of behaviour, and they have a right to be,” the judge said, adding that boy racers “need to understand the risk they take and the consequences that follow”.
Defence lawyer Amy Jordan had argued that being charged with manslaughter was enough of a deterrent, but the judge disagreed. The sentence needed had to have “teeth” to be a deterrent and that involved prison time, she said.
Another life changed
What was not discussed at the July sentencing, and could not yet be reported by the media, was that Ngamo had been arrested for new charges in March last year.
The new charges prevented the media from immediately naming Ngamo after he lost his bid for permanent suppression.
According to the agreed summary of facts for his latest charges, Ngamo was riding a stolen electric bicycle through St Johns about 7am on March 25 last year when he entered the victim’s enclosed yard and looked inside her open bathroom window.
The victim had just gotten out of the shower and Ngamo held his phone inside the window to record her. She caught him in the act.
“Mr Ngamo fled on foot, tripped and then escaped on the stolen e-bike,” court documents state.
When police later searched his home, he refused to give them the access code for his phone, resulting in another charge. He denied the offending, telling police he had been in the neighbourhood to visit a bakery.
Finding a stranger at her window that morning rattled her to the core, the woman told Ngamo in a victim impact statement last week. She travelled to the hearing from Australia so that she could be heard.
“It shattered my sense of safety, stability and trust in the world around me,” she said, describing a feeling of vulnerability in what “should have been the safest and most private place in my life”.
Before the offending, she led a happy, stable and independent life in New Zealand, she said. But after the incident she was too afraid to return to her home, she said, explaining she could neither relax nor sleep there as the incident repeatedly played over in her memory.
Having to move suddenly was “deeply destabilising”, she said, explaining it also put a strain on her relationship, caused her to withdraw from friends and contributed to her leaving her job.
Eventually, she said, she returned home to Australia for a fresh start after having previously felt permanently settled in New Zealand.
“This offence uprooted my entire life, and some days I no longer recognise the person I’ve become,” she said. “I question whether I will ever truly feel safe again. In many ways, I feel like I’ve lost the person I used to be.”
‘Bad headspace’
Ngamo faced up to three years’ imprisonment for the charge of making an intimate visual recording and up to seven years’ imprisonment for receiving the stolen bicycle, worth $5000, and a $2700 stolen generator.
Defence lawyer Alex Slipper sought substantial reductions for his client, including a 15% discount for his guilty plea even though it was so close to trial that the victim had already flown in from Australia to give evidence.
Ngamo had always considered pleading guilty but it came late in the process, Slipper said, because his client was embarrassed to talk about his offending in front of a female communications assistant.
Slipper also sought discounts of 20% for his background and 5% for remorse. It’s agreed by all parties that his childhood would have been “awful for anyone to endure”, Slipper said, noting that Ngamo’s father had been in prison and he didn’t have a relationship with his mother. In addition, he said, the defendant suffered intellectual disabilities.
“He fully accepts what he did was very wrong,” Slipper said. “It occurred at a time he was under great stress, awaiting the sentencing for that manslaughter.”
Ngamo told authorities he had been living at a boarding house at the time and had been introduced to methamphetamine by housemates. Now knowing how the drug affects him, he has no intention of using it again, he said.
“At the time I was in very bad headspace,” Ngamo wrote in his apology letter. “It really hurts me knowing what you have been going through because of my actions.”
The defendant insisted he deleted the video of the victim immediately after she noticed him.
His lawyer came to court with the passcode for his phone so police and the victim can have reassurance he’s telling the truth, he said.
The judge agreed with Crown prosecutor Samara Wakefield that Ngamo’s discounts should be tempered, especially for his last-minute guilty plea.
“There can be no doubt that [the victim] has been profoundly affected by the offending,” he said. “That is an effect that has been ongoing. As you heard her say … this has changed her life in many ways.”
The judge set a starting point of 12 months for the Peeping Tom charge before adding eight months for receiving stolen property.
He then allowed 35% in total discounts for his guilty plea, his background and remorse before adding another month for having been on bail for the manslaughter charge when the new crimes occurred.
It would have resulted in a sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment, but Judge Lance settled on nine months instead after taking into account the sentence Ngamo is already serving.
That is what he believed the High Court judge would have increased the sentence by had Ngamo been sentenced for all charges at once.
Because Ngamo was already in prison, the sentence will have to be served consecutively rather than concurrently.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.