Results for From the Courts

Soane Patita Toutai’olepo (19) was sentenced to two-years imprisonment for grievous bodily harm, when he threw a rock injuring another student in a school rivalry between Tupou College and Tonga College, in 2019. The Chief Justice said it was a deterrent for future rival school violence. "It is a very great shame that the defendant must start his adult years by spending a year in prison.”

A 16-year-old boy received a fully suspended sentence for indecently assaulting a 51-year-old woman, who was going for a run in the morning. "No member of society deserves to be set upon in broad daylight in the way in which the defendant did here,” said the Chief Justice in sentencing the offender.

The trial against Lord Tu'ivakano on offences relating to Tongan passports, heard from a Crown witness, that despite lack of concrete evidence to prove naturalisation in two passport applications, the accused still directed for their issuance.

The jury trial against Lord Tu’ivakano who is charged with 10 counts, mostly passport related offences is continuing, in its second week at the Supreme Court, in Nuku'alofa.

Lord Tu’ivakano has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges, five of which are for acceptance of a bribe by a government servant, at the start of his jury trial, at the Supreme Court today, February 11. By Linny Folau.

Sione Filipe Jr and a co-accused pleaded not guilty to illicit drug charges, when they appeared for the first time at the Supreme Court on February 6.

The illicit drugs case against Sione Filipe Jr is set to be called for the first time on February 6, at the Supreme Court in Nuku'alofa.

Three men who assaulted a soldier in September last year were found guilty at the Supreme Court in Nuku'alofa, on December 16.

A couple has been convicted of serious sexual crimes of rape, sodomy and serious indecent assault of a woman in Neiafu earlier this year.