Walk Without Fear Charitable Trust Secretary Mike Angove travelled to Wellington on Thursday to present an oral submission to the parliamentary Crimes Amendment Bill Select Committee, lending the Trust's support to proposed legislation that would, for the first time, recognise the coward punch as a specific criminal offence and establish a new charge of culpable homicide where a coward punch causes death.

The Trust, founded in the wake of the 2021 coward punch death of promising City Kickboxing teammate Fau Vake, backs the new offence framework as a meaningful and symbolically important step. But it is calling on Parliament to go further, warning that the reforms will fail to produce materially different sentencing outcomes without the introduction of mandatory minimum non-parole periods for coward punch killers.

"Naming the coward punch in statute puts a stake in the ground. It removes the ambiguity that has allowed perpetrators to escape appropriate accountability. But without mandatory minimums, this risks being largely symbolic reform. Maximum penalties do not determine sentencing outcomes. Mandatory minimums do," says Mike Angove, Secretary, Walk Without Fear Charitable Trust

New Zealand's current sentencing landscape for coward punch manslaughter reflects a justice system that the Trust argues is systemically undervaluing human life. The numbers are stark:

By contrast, in New South Wales and Victoria, where Parliament has legislated mandatory minimums, average sentences exceed nine years, with non-parole periods commonly above six years. The Trust's submission notes that those outcomes were not achieved by more courageous judges. They were achieved by Parliament changing the law.

"That is not a judicial failure," Angove says. "It is a legislative one. Judges are constrained by the Sentencing Act 2002, which requires consistency with prior sentencing levels. Without Parliament intervening to set a minimum non-parole floor, courts are legally prevented from departing upward. That is precisely what the Justice Radich said in the recent Daniel Nganeko sentencing: 'I must apply the law as it stands.' Only Parliament can change that."

A Practitioner's View of a Lethal Act

The Trust brings an unusual form of expertise to the legislative debate. Its Chairman and City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman and Angove are amongst the world's most respected combat sports coaches.

"A coward punch is not an impulsive act," says Bareman, it is deliberate and calculated, a conscious decision to strike the most vulnerable target on the human body, without giving the victim any opportunity to brace, defend, or protect themselves.

“In combat sport, these strikes are absolutely prohibited because we know, from both science and experience, that they are uniquely lethal. The circumstances of delivery — a relaxed jaw, an unbraced body, a hard surface on the way down — are what kill. Not necessarily the force."

The Human Cost: Fau Vake and Daniel Nganeko

The Trust was established in 2023 in direct response to the coward punch killing of teammate Fau Vake, while walking home with his younger brother in 2021. Vake spent nine days in an induced coma before life support was withdrawn. He left behind a daughter, Issa.

His killer, Daniel Havili, was sentenced to two years and nine months. He was paroled in eleven months.

"Eleven months. For a man's life. His family serves a life sentence. The killer did not." — Mike Angove

The Trust points to the Nganeko case as further evidence of systemic failure. Daniel Nganeko was killed by repeat offender Daytona Thompson in another unprovoked coward punch attack. Thompson received four years and two months — reduced from a starting point of seven years after a forty percent sentencing discount was applied.

The sentencing judge, constrained by precedent, explicitly stated he could not impose a sentence reflecting community expectations.

"These cases are not outliers," Angove says. "They are the product of a sentencing framework that has no minimum floor for taking a human life with a coward punch. Until Parliament sets that floor, the same outcomes will continue to repeat."

What the Trust is Asking Parliament to Do

The Trust's formal submission calls on the Select Committee to:

1. Support the creation of the coward punch as a specific offence and culpable homicide where death results — and include both offences under the three strikes legislation.

2. Significantly curtail sentencing discounts for guilty pleas, remorse, and background factors for recidivist violent offenders.

3. Introduce a mandatory minimum non-parole period of eight years for manslaughter by coward punch — consistent with legislative interventions in New South Wales and Victoria.

"The public's loss of confidence in the justice system is growing crisis, says Angove. “When the average sentence for fraud is higher than the average sentence for killing someone with a coward punch, the system is sending an unmistakable message about the relative value it places on human life. This Committee has the opportunity to begin changing that."

About Walk Without Fear Charitable Trust

Walk Without Fear Charitable Trust is a New Zealand registered charity established in 2023. Its mission is to eliminate the coward punch and prevent street violence through community education, youth outreach, school programmes, and sustained advocacy for victims of serious violent crime. The Trust works in partnership with New Zealand Police on violence-prevention initiatives.

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