Like father, like son

Meet Mark Marino, the father of Turangi child rapist Raurangi Marino. And this sobering story from Stuff goes some way to explaining why the younger Marino turned out the way he did:

A Mongrel Mob gang member barked and growled like a dog as he repeatedly kicked and punched his partner around the head and face during an assault in her home.

Mark Marino, 45, of Turangi, was sentenced to jail when he appeared in Taupo District Court yesterday on a charge of assault with intent to injure at his partner's home in January.

Marino is the father of Raurangi Marino, 16, who was jailed for 10 years in March for a sexual attack on a 5-year-old girl at a Turangi holiday park in December.

Mark Marino was arrested the day his son was sentenced. He had been drinking before arriving at the Turangi home of his partner, with whom he had an on-off relationship for five years, the court was told. They sat around the kitchen table talking but, midway through the afternoon, Marino began barking and growling.

His partner became angry and told him to stop, but he took no notice. She left the house to go for a walk and clear her head.

When she returned about 11pm, Marino was still at the house, drinking with six friends. Two children were also present.

He ordered her to sit at the table but she refused and asked him to leave the house. He continued to bark and growl and yell the Mongrel Mob slogan "Sieg Heil".

The woman tried to physically remove Marino from the house but lost her balance and stumbled to the floor. Marino grabbed her, wrapped his hand around her long hair and pushed her into a corner, before punching her in the face and head more than a dozen times.

As she fell to the floor, he kicked and stomped on her head and face up to three times while continuing to bark and growl, and threatening to kill her.

Friends and family watched the bashing without interfering, the court was told.

Police arrived to find the woman's face and upper clothing drenched in blood. She suffered two black eyes, and severe swelling around the right eye, cuts to her nose and lip, and heavy bruising on both hands and upper arm.

As we have blogged before, we abhor gangs. They offer nothing positive whatsoever to a civilised society. Violence, especially towards women is endemic within gangs, as is the widespread abiuse of drugs and alcohol. It is telling that no-one intervened to stop Marino's attack on his partner; that's the gang way.

Raurangi Marino drew a double short straw. As well as his father, his mother is reported as having had links to Black Power. That of course is no excuse for his horrific offending, but it gives an insight into his upbringing, and into the values instilled in him; values which most of us would find abhorrent.

 We think back to a post we did in February about Henare O'Keefe from Flaxmere, who had recently been given the title of New Zealand Local Hero of the Year. This paragraph in particular came to mind:

At around the 8m35s mark where O'Keefe talks about his belief that children are the products of the environment in which they are brought up; he says "there's no such thing as a bad baby. Something has happened in that child's life for them to walk around with a chip the size of Te Mata Peak on both shoulders." He then says "Change the home and you'll change the community, in my humble opinion.".

Raurangi Marino was not born evil. But he was born into a family where he was exposed to a side of life that most of us cannot comprehend. That is not an excuse for his offending in December last year, but it may give an insight into why he made the choices that he did. There is no doubt that the younger Marino is a product of the environment in which he was raised.

So how do we stop the next generation of Raurangi Marinos? We don't have the answer to that question. But surely it's time that as a society, we had the debate on it.