Race fixing charge dropped
The Crown has dropped a race fixing charge against harness racing trainer-driver Nigel Raymond McGrath, and another man has admitted three drugs charges arising from the Operation Inca investigation....
View ArticleBail granted on chase-related charge
A judge has let Marcel Sydney Geros out on bail after hearing that he was in the process of handing back his Black Power gang patch when a car chase incident developed in New Brighton last week. But...
View ArticleCommunity-based penalties for heritage plant importations
An Opawa man’s heritage seeds project – aimed at securing the future of New Zealand’s food supply – has drawn a sentence of community detention and community work. Christchurch District Court Judge...
View Article‘Disgusting’ mess left at school by teen burglar
A teenager who defecated inside Clinton school during a burglary has been released on intensive supervision and will have to do 200 hours of community work. Nineteen-year-old Joshua Forrest Duxbury’s...
View ArticleMosque murders trial may be moved from Christchurch
An application to move the trial of alleged mosque shooter Brenton Harrison Tarrant away from Christchurch will be heard in October. The defence team of Shane Tait and Jonathan Hudson has applied in...
View ArticleVideo possession ‘disrepectful’ to massacre victims
A 16-year-old has been told it was “incredibly disrespectful” to the victims for him to have a copy of the mosque massacre video. The teenager, who appeared for sentencing in the Youth Court, is the...
View ArticleWoman knocked out during raid on optician
Home detention has been allowed for a drug addict who knocked a woman shop assistant unconscious when he pushed her over during a raid on a central Christchurch optician. Christchurch District Court...
View ArticleMurder trial delayed by appeal
The September trial of three people charged with the murder of Pierclaudio Raviola has been delayed for two months while the Court of Appeal deals with a pre-trial issue. The trial of Cyle Robert...
View ArticleMosque video offender allegedly sent ‘violent’ letters from prison
Mosque video offender Philip Neville Arps has allegedly sent out letters from prison expressing violent views, the Crown has claimed. Crown prosecutor Shivani Dayal acknowledged that the Crown did not...
View ArticleDriver threatened after admitting fatal crash
A group at court threatened a truck driver who admitted running a red light in a crash that killed two and injured three family members in Yaldhurst Road in April. One of the red-clad group could be...
View ArticleMurder charge laid over man’s death during chase
Police have laid a murder charge against Liam Teau Ariki Strickland over the death of a pedestrian during a police pursuit incident in New Brighton on August 7. Strickland, 21, appeared in the...
View ArticleSex customer kidnapped and robbed, Crown alleges
A man who arranged to meet a sex worker through an online app found himself being kidnapped for four hours and robbed, the Crown alleged as a two-week trial began in the High Court at Christchurch. Six...
View ArticleTear test caught forged money
A Bromley bartender caught a fake $50 note by trying to tear it when a customer handed it over to get change for the pokie machines. Thirty-two-year-old Whiddon Phillip Thomas, who has no known...
View ArticleAlleged robbery victim was buying silence, says defence
A defence lawyer alleged a sex industry customer was not being robbed when he handed over money and property, but trying to buy silence. The allegation by Andrew McKenzie was made on the second day of...
View ArticleWoman killed in Linwood high speed crash
Police say a car was being driven at close to 100km an hour in Linwood when it crashed into another car that had gone through a stop sign, with one killed and three injured in the crash that followed....
View ArticleRobbery accused agrees to custody remand
A 42-year-old homeless man charged with a central Christchurch robbery on Tuesday has been remanded in custody – which police said was what he wanted. Because of mental health issues, the man was...
View ArticleMeth dealer blew all her chances
A woman methamphetamine dealer has been jailed after a judge told her she had “blown” all the chances she had been given. That includes absconding from an impressive new rehabilitation centre in rural...
View ArticleExtra jail time for Killer Beez member
A heavily tattooed Killer Beez gang member who has admitted a prison yard assault has had eight months added to the jail term he is already serving for a dairy robbery. Adam Moore, 24, was jailed for...
View ArticleCemetery plaque thief jailed for 26 months
Christchurch’s courts rang to the sound of a waiata as a woman who stole brass plaques from a cemetery was told she had committed “an affront to all things sacred and decent”. The waiata was part of a...
View ArticlePrisoner’s ‘cultural identity’ to be changed
A judge has ordered that prisoner’s “cultural identification” be officially changed from pakeha to Samoan as he begins a four-year jail term. The criminal justice system’s records for James Anthony...
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