'A massive shock': Grieving family arrive to find fire victim's home ransacked

In November 2024, a block of Kāinga Ora flats in Lower Hutt was firebombed, killing an elderly man. Three members of the Mangu Kaha, an offshoot of Black Power, stood trial for murder and arson. This week members of the public gallery erupted into cheers as verdicts were returned. Catherine Hutton reports on a case that provided extraordinary insight into gang life in the Hutt Valley. 

The 111 calls came in early on Guy Fawkes morning. 

As firefighters rushed to Hanson Grove in the Lower Hutt suburb of Stokes Valley, they knew this wasn’t someone letting off firecrackers. 

It was the third time they’d been dispatched to the block of Kāinga Ora flats in a month. 

In the early hours of October 10, a tenant put out a fire on the first-floor landing where a blackened beer bottle lay against the stairwell railing. 

Four days later, Molotov cocktails made from beer bottles and a plastic jerry can were thrown at the back of the building, bouncing off and landing on the grass. Only bad weather prevented fires from taking hold. 

Then, just after 3am on November 5, fire crews were called to another fire that would claim the life of pensioner Ian Moller, who lived upstairs. 

Firefighters at Hanson Grove on the night of the fire in November 2024. Photo / Supplied. 

The small, fit and wiry pensioner had called the modest two-bedroom flat home for 23 years. It was crammed with clothes, clutter and his beloved books, many reflecting the 82-year-old’s two passions: history and faith. 

His best friend acknowledged to the jury that Moller was “a bit of a hoarder”. However, his case manager would tell his family that “he wasn’t a messy hoarder, but a tidy hoarder”. 

Photographs shown to the jury depicted boxes, books and papers stacked on overflowing bookcases in a corridor. 

In Moller’s bedroom, home gym equipment sat alongside clothes hanging from wardrobe doors and other personal belongings scattered around the room. 

In his closing address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Anselm Williams said no one suggested that, on the night of the fire, Moller was anything other than an innocent man at home, minding his own business. 

He wasn’t a gang member, a drug dealer or a drug user. 

In hospital, Moller clung to life for five days before finally succumbing to complications from smoke inhalation on November 10, 2024. 

His niece Denise Harrison, still reeling from her uncle’s unexpected death, would encounter further shock when she learned his smoke-damaged unit had been ransacked after he died. 

The bedroom in Ian Moller's flat after it was ransacked following his death. Photo / Supplied. 

After flying down from Auckland, she arrived at her uncle’s flat to find his bed turned upside down, his cupboards and drawers opened, and his modest possessions scattered and dumped on the floor. 

“It was a massive shock; we were already dealing with the fact he’d passed away in these awful circumstances, and then to turn up at his flat and find it was literally upside down, it was horrific.” 

Police later identified Moller’s neighbour, Te Aroha Kimura, as the culprit, after finding the pensioner’s bank card, coffee tables, books and personal documents in her ground-floor flat. She had used his bank card to shop online. 

Kimura was jailed for 22 months in August last year on charges of burglary and dishonestly using a document. 

The lounge and dining area at Ian Moller's flat after his flat was ransacked following his death. Everything had been dumped out of drawers and scattered all over the floor. 

‘Mr Barber, you are free to step out of the dock’ 

In the High Court at Wellington this week, yelling and cheers of delight rang out from the public gallery as one of the three defendants charged in relation to Moller’s death was acquitted of the charges he faced. 

“F*** go the,” Henare Barber exclaimed loudly on hearing the foreperson’s not-guilty verdict to his charges of murder, manslaughter and arson, after the jury was unable to find he had directed or instructed the others to light the fires. 

“Sorry, your honour, it’s been a long week,” he said, before thanking the jury. 

Justice David Boldt told him, “Mr Barber, you are free to step out of the dock and go home; you can go out whichever door you like.” 

While his two co-accused, Arden Neho and Reardon Kamaru, were also acquitted of murder, they were found guilty of manslaughter and arson. 

Neho was also found guilty of arson and attempted arson relating to the first two fires. Both were remanded in custody. 

Ian Moller's niece, Denise Harrison. 

For Harrison, the verdicts, which came after two and a half days of deliberations, were a good outcome. 

“It would have been good to get the full charges against everyone, but I accept that the jury has to convict beyond reasonable doubt ... there was a lot of stuff to go through, so I don’t envy their job at all. 

“If I was in their shoes and I didn’t think there was enough evidence for a conviction, then I couldn’t do that either. I’m at peace with that.” 

She said police had done an exceptional job, securing convictions for manslaughter, arson and burglary. 

After the jury’s verdicts were read, the judge acknowledged the members’ efforts, thanking them for their care in deliberations and excusing them from jury service for five years. 

Harrison said the experience had been surreal, and she was still digesting it, but acknowledged it was good to have a conclusion. 

“You read about these situations in the paper all the time, and you just never believe that it will impact your own family. 

“You just never think you will be involved in something like this.” 

Ian Moller, 82, died in November 2024, after a fire at his home in Hanson Grove, Stokes Valley. 

No obvious suspects or motive 

Back in 2024, news of the fire spread quickly through the Stokes Valley community. But without obvious suspects or motive, police faced a challenging investigation. 

In the days after the third fire, police went door-to-door, canvassing the area. Search warrants were obtained, enabling police to seize several phones from which they took text messages, polling data and telephone intercepts, looking for similarities between the three fires. 

From that, the Crown said the evidence pointed to four men: Neho, Kamaru, Barber and a fourth defendant, Shyheim Aiga, who has already pleaded guilty to his involvement in the first two fires and will be dealt with separately. 

It was a simple proposition: Neho, Kamaru and Aiga torched the flats under the promise of gang patches, directed by Barber, already a patched Mangu Kaha member. 

The Crown also suggested the fire was lit at the direction of Mangu Kaha, the gang that controlled Stokes Valley. 

With no witness accounts or CCTV clearly identifying the suspects, the Crown’s case was circumstantial. 

But as Williams would remind the jury in his closing address, they were allowed to draw inferences. 

They included that all three fires were started in the dead of night, using petrol as an accelerant. 

The Crown said texts between the defendants about a “mission”, “mahi”, and asking about being “ready for the mess” referred to a hit involving fire. Specifically, torching the block of flats at Hanson Grove. 

“This time should be easy; only need to use those mollys you made,” Aiga texted Neho days before the second attempt, which the Crown says was a reference to Molotov cocktails. 

The texts included references to getting patched up and discussions between the defendants of a “korowai”, which referred to a gang patch. 

The Crown said the defendants were responsible for murder because they must have known that lighting a fire in a building in the dead of night, while people were sleeping inside, would be fatal. 

But Justice Boldt told the jury that, if it couldn’t be sure the defendants had a conscious appreciation that death would happen, it had to find them guilty of manslaughter. 

The stairwell outside Ian Moller's flat at Hanson Grove, after a fire in October 2024. Photo / NZ Police 

No fingerprints, DNA or reliable witnesses – defence 

Meanwhile, the defendants’ lawyers reminded the jury of the lack of physical evidence tying their clients to the fires, including no fingerprints, DNA or reliable witnesses. 

They also suggested the Crown’s case was open to multiple interpretations. 

Barber’s lawyer, Shane Robinson, said any talk of “missions” or “mahi” that night was about doing over a drug house, not arson. “Mollys” referred to the drug MDMA, rather than incendiary devices. 

Samuel Campbell, representing Neho, admitted his client drove a family member’s silver car to the three fires, but submitted there was nothing to suggest he’d ever got out of the car. His client never intended the fires to be large or dangerous, let alone to kill anyone. 

Kamaru’s lawyer, Marty Robinson, told the jury that, while his client knew about the plan for the final arson, there was nothing to suggest he was involved, insisting he was at a friend’s place at the time and hadn’t left until after the fire was lit. 

But one question that hung over the lengthy trial: Why target that block of flats? It was a question to which the Crown would save a possible answer until its final address. 

Rescuers needed rescuing 

When firefighters arrived early that November morning, Moller was seen at his upstairs window. 

The fire started in a storage area beneath his flat. It quickly caught in the tinder-dry framing and reached the upper floor, with the smoke filling his small flat. 

As two firefighters climbed the internal stairs with heavy breathing apparatus on their backs, visibility inside Moller’s flat had reduced to half a metre. 

Breaking through the locked front door, they inched into the cramped flat, finding Moller by touch, standing in a hallway, crying out for help. Within minutes he’d collapsed, losing consciousness. 

But as they tried to navigate through the clutter, they became trapped, unable to find their way out, having to follow a rescue crew’s hose to safety. 

Moller was carried to the waiting ambulance, unresponsive. 

A storage cupboard at Hanson Grove, which was identified as the seat of the fire. 

On the day Moller died, Neho, Kamaru and Aiga were patched at a cemetery in nearby Taitā. A photo taken that afternoon showed Neho wearing his Mangu Kaha vest. Later Kamaru texted a friend, “I’m officially patched my gang.” 

The Crown says that was their reward, an acknowledgment that they’d done what the gang asked and accomplished their mission. 

50,000 pages of disclosure, 70 exhibits and witnesses 

It was, by any measure, a large trial, stretching into eight weeks and involving more than 50,000 pages of disclosure. 

Each sitting day, the three defendants, 10 lawyers, four Corrections staff, two police officers, a communications assistant and a judge’s clerk filed into courtroom one. 

The trial also had shorter sitting days and regular breaks for Neho, who is hard of hearing and sat with a communications assistant. A bout of winter illness among the jury and lawyers further slowed the trial’s progress. 

Throughout the trial, a picture of the three defendants emerged, with both Barber and Kamaru giving evidence. 

Barber, 27, the businessman, was always looking for an opportunity to make money. 

Kamaru, 34, the drug addict, admitted he wasn’t a prospect because he was a bad listener and more interested in taking drugs. 

Finally, Neho, who, at 41, was much older than his co-accused, was a good prospect capable of following orders without question. 

More than 70 exhibits were produced, ranging from Molotov cocktails retrieved from the flats, CCTV, prison phone calls, video of the fire and a visual timeline. 

Alongside the tidy rows of colour-coded exhibit books below the registrar’s desk sat pieces of burnt plastic and blackened beer bottles. There were so many exhibits that an extra table had to be brought in to accommodate them. 

Stokes Valley man Ian David Moller, 82, died five days after being critically injured in a fire that was deliberately lit in the block of flats where he lived. 

Central to the Crown’s case was a large volume of texts between the defendants and their associates. 

Littered with slang and profanities, they included references to gangs, unrelated criminal offending, drugs, drug dealing, and people being in prison. They also revealed complex and, at times, toxic relationships. 

Some of the messages were sad, others embarrassing; a lot were mundane. There were references to picking up kids from kura, concerns about leaving a child at home alone, or struggling to find petrol money to get to Stokes Valley. 

Remnants of a Molotov cocktail were found outside Ian Moller's flat after the first fire in October 2024. Photo / NZ Police 

The witness list ran to 70 people: some of their statements were read to the jury, a few appeared by audiovisual link, while others gave evidence in person. 

One man wore a onesie in the witness box; another grew so angry, adamant that police had the wrong men, that she argued with the prosecutor and the judge, prompting a brief adjournment. 

A third gave evidence that appeared to completely contradict the two statements he gave police more than a year after the fire. A fourth was declared a hostile witness. 

Several candidly told the court that, on the night of the fire, they were high on meth. 

It was a point the Crown didn’t shy away from in its closing address to the jury, with Williams admitting that nearly all those who saw something important on the night of the fire, or the days after, were reluctant to come to court or give evidence. 

The final arguments 

For three days, the jury sat and listened to closing addresses from counsel before Justice Boldt spent a final day summing up the case. 

No one disputed that the fires were deliberately lit and that Moller had died as a result of the final fire. 

In the Crown’s closing address, it submitted that Neho and Aiga were trying to prove themselves to the gang, with Williams pointing to the involvement of ranked members both before and while the fires were being lit. 

That involvement began with a hui Neho and Aiga attended at the home of Patrick Huaki, brother of the chapter’s vice-president Duane Huaki, a couple of days before the first fire. It was at that meeting, the Crown said, that the plan was hatched to torch the flats. 

Three days later, hours before the first fire, the pair met the gang’s sergeant-at-arms, Levi Daly, at a carpark near the entrance to Stokes Valley. Ten minutes later, CCTV showed them leaving the carpark. 

Texts between the pair after that meeting talked about Aiga “foiling up”, a reference to placing tinfoil over his electronic bracelet. 

The next day, texts between Neho and Aiga showed Neho was disappointed that something had failed: “F*** I knew it was the wrong time and day plus it didn’t help that lady was there everything was just too much of a rush should of did it on Sunday like I said.” 

After the second attempt, Aiga pulled out, claiming he had heart trouble, and was replaced by Kamaru. 

The Crown said that, after the second fire, Barber became actively involved to ensure the mission was a success. 

“Yo my brother, I just told them straight my brother if don’t get done they ain’t getting sh** yo,” Barber texted the chapter’s vice-president. 

Williams told the jury the content and timing of the messages on the night of the fatal fire, including a text from Neho to Kamaru at 2.19am asking “Were u”, suggested they were trying to meet up. 

The messages stopped around 3am, which aligned with the fire; the immediate departure of the silver car from Stokes Valley and Kamaru’s behaviour established it was Neho and Kamaru who started the fatal fire. 

Henare Barber in the High Court at Wellington. He was acquitted on charges of murder, manslaughter and arson. Photo / Melissa Nightingale 

But Robinson, Barber’s lawyer, told the jury that the texts the Crown relied on were open to multiple interpretations, including efforts to assert control over a nearby drug house to extort $500 a week in protection money. 

He described the Crown’s interpretation as “speculative”, pointing out that his client’s texts were sent in a five-day window after the first two fires. There were no texts in the two weeks before the final fire and no texts between his client and Kamaru. 

And he pointed to texts from other ranked members in the gang to the defendants, showing that the driving force for the attack came from higher up in the gang. 

“If this was a gang mission, it was not Mr Barber’s mission,” Robinson submitted to the jury. 

Arden Neho in the High Court at Wellington. He was found guilty of manslaughter and arson. Photo / Melissa Nightingale 

Meanwhile, Neho’s lawyer told the jury that his client drove to Stokes Valley on the night of all three fires but didn’t get out of the car. 

Campbell suggested the evidence showed he was an unsophisticated and easily manipulated man who followed the orders of the gang without thinking through the consequences. 

“He was easily directed, easily pressured and someone who would do what he was told without questioning and without thinking.” 

Campbell also observed that his client was much older than the other two defendants, “too old to be prospecting for a gang”. 

Neho hadn’t tried to conceal evidence by turning his phone off or deleting text messages, he said. 

Reardon Kamaru in the High Court at Wellington. He was found guilty of manslaughter and arson. Photo / Melissa Nightingale 

Finally, Robinson, for Kamaru, said his client knew the mission involved fire, but he reminded the jury that knowledge wasn’t the same as participation. 

He acknowledged that Kamaru had admitted in his evidence that “knowing the cheat code” was about making and using Molotov cocktails, but he told the jury that his client was merely posturing, and that didn’t show he was involved in committing the arson. 

He claimed Kamaru had sent the messages to string others along, but had no intention of taking part. 

He acknowledged that his client had asked an associate to delete their text messages, but said that was because he was generally paranoid of the police. 

He said his client didn’t need to undertake his mission to get his patch, because one had already been promised to him. 

Possible motive: Get rid of the Mongrel Mob 

During closing addresses, the Crown raised a possible motive: that the fires were lit to drive the Mongrel Mob out of Stokes Valley. 

According to the Crown’s theory, chapter president Shane Dawson lived next door to the flats in Hanson Grove and was unhappy that a Mongrel Mob member and another tenant with Mob connections were living there. 

He didn’t want to live next to a Mob house. 

“One is red, and one is blue. Stokes Valley is Mangu Kaha, and the defendants were trying to get the Mongrel Mob to leave Stokes Valley”, Williams told the jury. 

But in his summing-up, Justice Boldt reminded the jury that there was no evidence to support that theory and no witness had agreed with it. 

The flats at 2-8 Hanson Grove. Kāinga Ora sold the property in March this year. 

A complex and extensive case 

After the verdicts, Detective Senior Sergeant Martin Todd issued a statement acknowledging the police team’s meticulous work over the lengthy 22-month investigation. 

That included Detective Sergeant Chris McManus and Detective Constables Joss Powell, Justin Tylee and Ben Forsyth. 

Todd also thanked the wider Stokes Valley community for their continued support throughout the investigation. 

“Especially the homes and businesses that provided important CCTV footage, and the witnesses who provided statements and testified in court.” 

In March, Kāinga Ora sold the flats, which are now being renovated. While the lower windows remain boarded up, there are new decks and fencing at the back. 

Moller’s painted wooden door has been replaced with a new aluminium one, his old flat has been recarpeted, and the interior is freshly painted. 

It’s hard to know what Moller would have made of the renovations. He didn’t want to move, refusing to leave after the first fire, fearful that Kāinga Ora would force him to shift somewhere else. 

Ian Moller with his niece Denise Harrison (right) and nephew Richard Moller as children. 

Harrison says the circumstances around her uncle’s death exposed the criminal activity that took place around a perfectly innocent man who was living his life and not causing harm to anyone. 

“He was an innocent victim, quite quiet, kept to himself, going about his life. His whole life really revolved around church and going to Bible study. He was a bit of a quirky individual.” 

Kamaru, Neho and Aiga will be sentenced in the High Court at Wellington before the end of the year. 

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.