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Three major criminal gangs in New Zealand - Hell's Angels, Mongrel Mob and Black Power - while the Tribesmen are attempting to set up shop.gangs should be outlawed. Laws says the way to attack gangs is not to give them longer sentences after they have been convicted, but to hound, harass and deny them access to benefits and state houses. The council will make a submission to parliament along those lines. Tukituki MP Craig Foss made a special speech in parliament about the murder of central Hawke's Bay farmer Mark McCutcheon after the Gangs and Organised Crimes Bill passed its first reading under urgency this week.A 22-year-old gang associate has been charged with McCutcheon's murder.Foss said society needs to fight back and say enough is enough.gangs to take over too many of the country's streets, Police Minister Judith Collins says.The criticism comes after a woman and her two young children were allegedly threatened and forced from their Lower Hutt home by neighbouri...

Mongrel Mob member entered Black Power-dominated Munro St, in Elgin.More gang members arrived and many were armed with home-made weapons, including garden implements, Senior Sergeant Rodger Gray.At least 30 police responded to emergency calls from worried members of the public.Twelve people were arrested and charged with disorderly behaviour and possession of offensive weapons.A police search of properties in the street resulted in the discovery of two cannabis growing operations and the further arrest of two people on drugs charges. Most of those charged appeared in Gisborne District Court on Thursday, with a small number yet to appear on Friday."The disappointing thing for me is that it occurred at 10.30am on the first or second day of the school holidays," Gray says."There was a large number of people, including children, who were caught up in this."The message is that any incidents such as this won't be tolerated."

Youth accused of murdering Scots backpacker Karen Aim blamed a man trying to impress a gang called the Mongrel Mob, it was claimed yesterday.A school security guard said the 14-year-old accused brandished the bloodstained murder weapon in front of him. Leigh Herewini, a friend of the accused, told a court in New Zealand the schoolboy had fetched the wooden baseball bat from behind a trapdoor at the back of his grandparents' house.He told the committal hearing at Taupo Youth Court: "It had a lot of dents and bits missing off it. It looked like it had blood on it."I felt uncomfortable. It could have been the bat that hurt that girl. He said he had washed it, tried to wash the blood off it."But Mr Herewini said the accused, now aged 15, identified another man as the killer.Calling him Brian, the accused said the man had been trying to prove himself to a notorious criminal gang, the Mongrel Mob.The accusation had first come in a phone call from the youngster hours after ...

Two patched Mongrel Mob members from Christchurch and one from Dunedin were arrested yesterday, confirming reports that reinforcements from further north had arrived in the city, but police said tensions between the Mob's Invercargill chapter and the Road Knights had eased off after reaching boiling point last week.An Invercargill Mob member was also arrested yesterday and appeared in the Invercargill District Court on charges of possessing an offensive weapon and resisting police, while one of the Christchurch members also appeared on a resisting charge.Police maintained a security vigil around the court as six people believed to be connected to the Road Knights appeared on charges unrelated to the tensions.The side entrance to the court was locked, as it had been each time gang members appeared this week, with every person entering the court searched and scanned by a metal detector.Apart from a single drive-by in Don St by four patched Mob members in a Ford Falcon, and a couple o...