The Taufahemas - a loving family of killers and thugs
The Daily Telegraph
September 05, 2009 12:00AM
THE first thing Tevita Taufahema - Rowdy to his mates - saw when he woke up every morning at home was a target which hung from the curtain rail in his bedroom.
In his Parramatta Two Blues footy bag under his bed was a rifle and two shotguns - one an Italian-made single barrel, the other a shortened 12-gauge British double-barrel with its serial number filed off.
Sometimes he shared the bedroom with some of his brothers but it was a moveable feast.
On a warm February evening in 2008, the small bedroom was packed with testosterone. Tevita had six of his mates around. Some were on PlayStation 3, others were talking.
By the end of the evening one of them, Chris Emmerson, 18, sleeping in his car after being thrown out of home by his parents, had been shot dead. One of the others, a 16-year-old, is due to be sentenced later this month for his manslaughter.
Two of the others, both 14, are in juvenile institutions after storming Merrylands High School armed with a Samurai sword and assaulting pupils and staff during morning assembly a few months later. One of the teenagers was high on an "ice binge" at the time they ran amok.
Then this week, barely a month after he turned 18, Tevita was shot dead by police during an armed robbery after he held a Canley Heights bar manager hostage with a gun to his head about 12.40am.
Welcome to the world of the Taufahema family.
Parents Loa and Heleine thought they were doing the best thing for their family when they migrated to Australia from their native Tonga in 1988 and took out Australian citizenship. They had 11 children, eight boys and three girls, some of whom still live at home in Blaxland.
It is a close knit family that protects its own. The way it feels about outsiders is best demonstrated by what the family calls itself on its page on social networking site Bebo: The Taufahema Army.
Meet them.
The two oldest Motekiai, 33, and John, 30, both born in Tonga, are in jail for the shooting death of highway patrol officer Glenn McEnally after a high speed chase in 2002. Murder convictions were overturned and they are each serving a minimum of seven years after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Sister Honora, 28, a mother-of-three better known as Nola, who has a conviction for robbery in company, is in Mulawa women's jail until December after she breached a suspended sentence.
Filisione, 27, is on remand in Parklea jail charged with the armed robbery of the Regents Park Sporting Club in February last year, the same month Emmerson was shot dead in his brother's bedroom.
Filisione was one of the first people on which police used a Taser gun.
"I can control them at home but when they get out . . ." a heartbroken Heleine Taufahema told The Daily Telegraph this week.
The four-bedroom family home is old. A small, weatherboard-clad cottage on a corner block in a predominantly housing commission area, but it is clean and tidy.
Time and again, judges in Sydney courts called for pre-sentence reports on whichever Taufahema was standing before them but appear to be at a loss to explain what turned them into a family of several young thugs.
They appeared to be close and stable without particular problems or the usual triggers which experts like to blame for acts of violence.
"From the information available, it is difficult to explain Mr Taufahema's behaviour," Justice James Wood said when dealing with John Taufahema over the killing of Senior Constable McEnally.
"He does not present with a history of having been exposed to any aggression in his own family. The typical factors which are commonly found among people who have criminal records similar to Mr Taufahema do not appear to be present."
Like some of his brothers, Tevita was a promising footballer. Wallabies legend Gary Ella wrote to him offering him equipment and sponsorship at Parramatta Two Blues.
Tevita, whose criminal record began at the age of 15 for assault and demanding property with menaces, was not involved in the shooting of Emmerson but 16 days later he was behind bars for assault with intent to rob. He was arrested on February 27.
Released from jail in November last year, he was back inside in March for breaching parole.
Tevita finally walked free from
on June 19. Less than six weeks later he was dead.
When The Daily Telegraph returned to the family home on Thursday, a large window at the front of the house had been smashed and there was a glass repair company replacing it.
Loa Taufahema said it had been accidentally broken when they were moving furniture.
Sydney’s Occupied Territories: Courtesy of the “enlightened progressives” of the Australian Labor Party and their United Nations masters.
Get this SHIT out of here now, NO? I hear you say Kevin 07, Oh yeah that’s right that would be one less family of Labor’s preferred criminal arse hole voters and life long social security receipient’s who would be able to “vote early and vote often” in order to keep Kevin 07 and his successors in Power.
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