Court declines application by shooter jailed for attempted murder to appeal jail term

The Supreme Court of New Zealand has declined Billy Matara’s application to appeal his sentence for attempted murder after shooting his victim twice with a pump-action shotgun. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A man convicted of attempted murder after shooting his victim twice with a pump-action shotgun has had an application to appeal his jail sentence denied.

While living at a boarding house in Mangere East, Billy Mark Matara followed another resident into the kitchen where he shot him twice in the torso with the firearm in the early hours of May 7, 2016.

Matara was sentenced at the Auckland High Court, on September 11, 2017, to 10 years’ and two months’ imprisonment following a trial where he was found guilty of attempted murder.

It was Matara’s second strike offence after previously being convicted of aggravated robbery in March 2012, and the three strikes legislation required him to serve the sentence without the possibility of parole.

The Court of Appeal, however, ruled in December 2021 that denying Matara the right to apply for parole breached section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act – Everyone has the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment.

It found the three strikes legislation was subject to an unexpressed qualification that an order under that provision need not be made if the result would be inconsistent with the NZBORA.

Instead, the court imposed a minimum non-parole period of 40 per cent, four years’ and 24 days’ on Matara, who had previously abandoned his appeal against conviction.

Matara, who was a prospect for the eastern chapter of the Head Hunters motorcycle gang at the time of the shooting, then applied to the Supreme Court of New Zealand to appeal the judgment on the grounds the court had not also reduced his sentence.

He raised the issue of discrimination in the calculation of his sentence submitting there were special considerations that would warrant a further reduction in sentence.

Matara claimed he had suffered discrimination, being Māori, and also from having mental health issues.

The Crown opposed the application as the length of the sentence was not challenged in the Court of Appeal and no Bill of Rights discrimination issues were raised.

The Supreme Court didn’t believe it was appropriate to deal with the issues Matara sought to raise for the first time on a second appeal, particularly as evidence would likely be required.

It noted Matara was now eligible for parole so there would be no practical effect from any sentence reduction and the three strikes legislation was in the process of being repealed.

“This reduces any general and public importance of the proposed appeal. We therefore do not consider that it is necessary in the interests of justice to hear the appeal.”