A young father who was convicted of five charges, two of them relating to the riots of November 16, 2006 serves a nine months imprisonment sentence starting today.

Kapuli Hurrell (24) of Popua appeared in the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court this morning for two incidences that resulted in five charges including theft, wilful damage, bodily harm and two counts of housebreaking.

Chief Justice Anthony Ford initially imposed on Kapuli a sentence of 15 months imprisonment but after taking into account his guilty plea and other mitigating factors he suspended the last six months.

This means he will serve only nine months in Hu'atolitoli Prison.

The Chief Justice emphasised to the accused that if it were not for his guilty plea he would have imposed a sentence of two and a half to three-years prison sentence.

But after considering the factors that the accused was remorseful, and had apologised for the damage done as well as co-operating with the Police Chief, Mr Justice Ford suspended the last six months for two years from the date of release.

Looted

Kapuli pleaded guilty to two charges of housebreaking and theft that occurred during 16/11 riots.

The court was told that on this day, the accused came to town when the riots took place and looted a shop that was located under the gutted Star Cinema and stole 52 pairs of pants worth $1,820 pa'anga.

In the second incident on February 2, 2007 the accused was charged with three counts of housebreaking, wilful damage and bodily harm.

The court was told on this particular night Kapuli was involved in a fight with one named Maka Latu at the Davina's Nightclub at Ma'ufanga.

After the fight he went to a home where Maka was living at Popua and waited for him with rocks. Around 2am Maka returned home and Kapuli started throwing rocks at the house causing damage worth $3,000 pa'anga.

He then broke in and started beating up an innocent person, who was sleeping on the verandah, with a machete.

Kapuli, who represented himself, apologised to the court for his actions and requested leniency, as he is a father of two young children.