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A former Mongrel Mob president has won a battle to save his gang pad from Crown confiscation. Bill Elers, the past head of the gang’s Mataura chapter in Southland, told the High Court last month that his property is a place where family and friends gather. He likened it to a marae. The Crown wanted to take the property, using a forfeiture order under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, which allows authorities to confiscate assets accumulated through significant criminal activity. However, the High Court has ruled Elers can keep his property. In a recently released judgment, Justice Christine Gordon discharged the order against the property at Albion St, which has a CV of $225,000. The property is registered in the name of Elers but the order was against his son Turoirangi Atarea Harmer-Elers, the current chapter president of the Mataura Mongrel Mob. It was Elers, however, who made a claim for relief of the order. Who knew what about criminal activity at the gang pad? The Crown alleged Harmer-Elers had control of the property between January and November 2022 when it was the scene of several beatings. The Crown argued Elers knew the pad was being used for criminal activities, even after leaving it in the hands of his son and others when he left Mataura to live in the North Island in 2013. Elers disputed it, saying he was living in the North Island at the time of the offending, and had infrequent contact with Harmer-Elers. Justice Gordon agreed the property was an instrument of crime but disagreed Harmer-Elers had “effective control” of it. It was agreed Elers acquired his interest in the property before the offending and was not involved in the offences, according to the judgment. Police execute search warrants at the property in June 2023. Photo / NZ Police Harmer-Elers is serving a prison term of three years and four months for kidnapping and assault with intent to injure, relating to the beating of a gang member at the property in August 2022. The violence was related to an internal gang feud, which prompted a spree of violent crimes that year, including drive-by shootings and assaults that left people critically injured. Operation Pakari, the police response to the violence, resulted in the prosecution of six gang members, who received jail terms ranging from three years and four months to six years. The Crown relied on the concept of “effective control” to argue that Harmer-Elers had an interest in it. Representing Elers, Fiona Guy Kidd, KC, argued that Harmer-Elers’ interests over the property could be equated to that of a tenant, with no protections of a tenancy or rental agreement. Guy Kidd said it was not a situation of a “sham ownership” by one person for another, referring the court to Elers’ statement that he owned it. Elers told the court he paid for the property with money from his work as a shearer and at the freezing works. He said an arrangement was made for others to pay for rates, insurance and upkeep of the property when he moved to the North Island. ‘It’s like a marae’ Elers told the court he moved back to the property at the end of 2023 and that it was for “everyone”. “That is from now on, it’s like a marae,” he said at the April hearing. Elers said family, friends, other clubs, shearers, fruit pickers and after-hours workers had stayed at the property over the years. Justice Christine Gordon. Photo / George Heard Justice Gordon accepted Harmer-Elers couldn’t restrict his father from the property and didn’t have any form of legal interest in it. Guy Kidd’s submission that Harmer-Elers’ control over the gang as president was accepted, but that didn’t equate to him having effective control of the property, Justice Gordon said in the judgment. Justice Gordon found Elers had a 100% interest in the property and that his son didn’t have effective control over it. “The fact that, as president or captain, Mr Harmer-Elers had a degree of control over the gang members, and that the property was used as a...
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