VICTIM TOO: Hendrix Hauwai’s mum, Josephine Atkins, says she tried to get help for her son many times.

Josephine Atkins has just three photos of her youngest son, Hendrix Hauwai, in her Manurewa home but proudly says she's kept all of his school reports.

When we visit Atkins at her Housing New Zealand property, the modest weatherboard home she's lived in for 10 years, she's disappointed with the accusations that have been flung her way but claims there was little she could do to control her son - she's a victim too, she says.

"People who know me know the truth. I might be a bad mum in some people's eyes, but a good one in others," she says.

When Hauwai appeared in the North Shore District Court on Monday for sentencing, following his assault on good Samaritan Lucy Knight, much was made of a rough upbringing, allegedly neglected then abandoned by both parents.

Following the attack even Knight was left asking, "Where were the parents?" In her summing up Judge Pippa Sinclair claimed Atkins had left her children after a new man came into the picture.

Hauwai had claimed his motivation for the bag snatch, during which Knight was knocked to the ground and sustained serious head injuries, was that he was starving and needed money for food, Judge Sinclair said.

"You should not be standing alone," she told the 17-year-old before she jailed him for close to five years. "Your mother and father should be standing in the dock with you for sentencing."

Atkins, 39, admits she wasn't in the courtroom when her son was jailed - "It hurts too much and the court is so far away" - but denies she's culpable for her son's crime.

Hauwai 's claim that he was starving was "rubbish" . "He was making stories up. He would have told a sad story to the judge, I think. I know Hendrix."

She says she tried to get help for him many times in the week before he was out roaming North Shore streets but says the system failed her - police paid little attention despite various phone calls.

Days prior to the assault on Knight, Hauwai was violent with neighbours and family including Atkins, in an attack in which she claims Hauwai came up behind her and knocked her unconscious.

She says the police were called and statements were taken but little was done despite his being on bail at the time; the next day Hauwai was in Northcote, trying to steal a handbag.

When police appealed to the public for information about the attack on Knight, Atkins claims it was she who called Crimestoppers.

She says Hauwai for the most part was a good lad, attending Randwick Park School as a youngster and never missing a day.

Atkins worked in a factory and her husband, not Hauwai 's biological father, was a concrete layer.

The budget was tight but two incomes were enough to put a roof over their children's heads and food on their table, Atkins said.

When Hauwai entered adolescence something went awry. Atkins said he "fell in with the wrong crowd", allegedly hooking up with Killer Beez gang members and falling in love with the wrong girl.

When Hauwai was 15, he and a group of friends committed an aggravated robbery on a liquor store in the central city. He was sent to Korowai Manaaki, a residential programme for youth offenders, for nine months.

The catalyst for the assault on Knight less than two years later came on Father's Day last year, Atkins said, when she and her husband split, leading to Hauwai's estrangement from the only father figure in his life. Hauwai responded by stealing a car and trying to commit suicide, she said.

"He was angry, disrespecting me, wanting to jump off the Alfriston Bridge. He couldn't deal with it . . . I tried to get him into counselling but he wouldn't go."

Julia Whaipooti, co-chair of youth justice advocacy organisation Just Speak, says it's too simplistic to blame parents for youth crime when intervention by social services could have prevented the offending.

"He's a victim of wider social failings in his life and now he's going to spend five years on a pathway in prison," she says.

"Unfortunately this situation could have happened very differently. We can assume he didn't go out to hurt someone in the way he hurt the victim in this case. He reacted, and the consequence of this was he hurt Lucy and her whanau. It's an absolute tragedy for everybody involved."

Labour MP for Manurewa and spokeswoman for youth issues, Louisa Wall, says there were "wonderful" services in South Auckland but the problem was ensuring they knew how to get help.

"There would have been a government agency who knew about this family. If the judge is saying the parents should stand by the young man, then so should all of us," Wall says.

"This highlights the existence of poverty and the extreme of behaviour in that context - maybe now we could be a bit more productive about ensuring people know where to turn for help."

Counties Manukau Police did not respond to questions in time.