A youth social worker with no prior record who admitted to a prolonged, fatal attack on an innocent bystander — yelling “Where’s the kids?” while in an apparent delusional state — had been acting strangely for hours before inflicting the “jackhammer”-style wounds with a knife in each fist.  

Joshua Timoti was charged with murder immediately after the August 2022 killing of kind-hearted apprentice builder Jonty Douglas, but he instead pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter on the eve of his trial in September.  

He returned to the High Court at Auckland today as Justice Peter Andrew sentenced him to five and a half years’ imprisonment. He will have to serve at least 40 per cent before he will be eligible to apply for parole. 

“The only plausible explanation for your horrific crimes appears to be your impaired mental state,” the judge said. “The facts suggest you were delusional ... This is an important factor.” 

Details of the attack can now be reported for the first time. The court had restricted reporting on the document outlining the agreed facts of the case until after the sentencing hearing. The majority of the document, somewhat unusually, focuses on Timoti’s odd behaviour leading up to the slaying rather than the attack itself. 

“In the preceding weeks, the defendant’s wife had noticed changes in the defendant’s behaviour, including him not sleeping at night, not eating as much as normal, distancing himself from her and their baby, and exhibiting some paranoia,” the summary of facts states. 

The 36-year-old Ōtāhuhu resident had awakened at 3am that day and left for work two hours early before quitting his job and going to see a counsellor, whom he confided to that “there was a voice in his head which made him feel overwhelmed”. Later that day his wife, concerned about Timoti’s wellbeing, asked their brother-in-law to come over and have “a few quiet beers with him”, court documents state. 

Joshua Timoti appears for sentencing in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham 

While drinking together, Timoti received a call and said a relative had invited them to another Ōtāhuhu address that he had never before visited. After arriving in the neighbourhood, Timoti began repeatedly calling out the name of the person they were to meet, his brother-in-law would later tell police. 

When a group of strangers started laughing at the scenario from the balcony of a nearby home, Timoti challenged them to a fight and had to be coaxed back into the car. On the drive back home, he began driving erratically when it was suggested there had been no invitation. His passenger texted ahead, advising his partner and Timoti’s wife to leave the home with the baby before the defendant arrived. 

At home, the brother-in-law tried to calm Timoti down, but the defendant kept lingering on the confrontation - grabbing knives from the kitchen several times and expressing an intent to go back to the group that had laughed at him. The other man stopped him each time, but then he left to use the toilet and when he came back Timoti was gone. 

Meanwhile, Douglas was visiting the same neighbourhood where Timoti lived, helping to move a couch to a friend’s home. 

“Where’s the kids, where’s my kids?” Timoti yelled as he approached the stranger. 

“What kids?” Douglas responded as he was punched in the head and repeatedly stabbed with both knives. 

Douglas eventually managed to retreat before he was attacked again, dying at the scene. He had been stabbed nearly a dozen times, including four wounds to his head. 

Jonty Douglas, 26, died at a South Auckland property in August 2022. Photo / Supplied 

About four hours later, while in a police holding cell, he began swinging wildly at a detective who had come in to speak with him. It took four more officers to restrain him, and Timoti eventually pleaded guilty to that attack as well. 

While there were clearly psychological issues at play, they should be tempered when considering Timoti’s sentence because those factors were already considered when allowing the charge to be reduced from murder to manslaughter, Crown prosecutor Natalie Walker told the judge at today’s hearing. The Crown conceded that a jury wouldn’t have found Timoti to have murderous intent. 

It’s also important to consider Timoti’s prior methamphetamine use and the “very clear evidence” of its contribution to his later psychosis, Walker said. 

But defence lawyer Nicola Manning sought a reduction of her client’s sentence by 20 to 25 per cent to account for the mental health factors at play. Although absolutely wrong in his assessment, Timoti had been lashing out at the victim because his disordered mind thought Douglas was killing children and he needed to save them, she said. Timoti was suffering the same delusion - thinking the detective was involved in the conspiracy - during the jail cell attack, she said. 

While Timoti had used methamphetamine in the past, he did not have the drug in his system that night, Manning added, adding that dismissing his actions that night as meth-induced psychosis dosn’t match “the true complexity and the reality of Mr Timoti’s mental disorder”. 

Police attend the scene where Joshua Timoti stabbed stranger Jonty Douglas to death in August 2022. Photo / Darren Masters 

Justice Andrew agreed that Timoti’s disordered mental state couldn’t be attributed to intoxication alone but also noted that methamphetamine use may have contributed earlier to the development of his mental health issues. He allowed a 10 per cent discount for mental health - about double what the Crown had proposed and half of what the defence had sought. 

Because it was Timoti’s first offence, his risk of re-offending has been assessed as low, the judge also noted. 

Douglas, who was 26 when he died, was described by sister Patreece Douglas today as a “gentle giant”, a “teddy bear” and a “happy-go-lucky guy” - the baby of four siblings who was kind, loving and always laughing. 

“We are broken and still are two years later healing from this,” she said through tears as she gave an emotional victim impact statement. “You ... changed our family’s life in a matter of minutes.” 

Joshua Timoti appears for sentencing in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham 

Patreece Douglas had previously met with Timoti for a restorative justice meeting in which he apologised for his behaviour that night. She expressed sorrow for his family, including his baby daughter. But she also emphasised the pain her own family has been through. 

Their father died from a broken heart five months to the day after his son, she said, explaining that after the killing he would “wake up crying and went to sleep crying for his son”. 

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.