Photo / NZMEDisgraced Hawke's horticultural contractor Joseph Auga Matamata has a lost a Court of Appeal bid to overturn his convictions for the enslavement of his immigrant workers. In one case Matamata had traced a transgressor who fled to Auckland and ensured his return to Hawke's Bay. "We are reluctant to impose a minimum period when the trial judge did not think it necessary." Matamata's offending was "calculated commercial offending on a large scale and over a long period of time," they said. As part of the original; sentence, Matamata paid $183,000 in reparation to complainants, from sale of his interest in a Camberley home where some of the offending was committed.

Source: New Zealand Herald August 09, 2021 00:18 UTC