He is due to be sentenced in Auckland District Court next month and faces up to five years’ imprisonment.
Career built on pranks
Stables, 53, was a well-known radio personality in the 90s and 2000s, drumming up headlines and routinely landing in court for his shock jock antics during stints with The Edge and ZM.
In 2000, he was convicted and fined $1100 for impersonating an Interpol detective during a prank call in which he told Los Angeles airport authorities that then-co-workers Jason Reeves, JJ Feeney and Clarke Gayford were smuggling kiwi eggs in their “rear cavities”. The trio was detained for hours upon arrival in the United States and searched.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.Iain Stables wore a Superman costume in Hamilton District Court in 2000 after he was charged with impersonating a detective and offensive use of a telephone after a false tip to US authorities. Photo / Derek Flynn
He also ended up in court for stunts that included throwing a bucket of water on anti-vivisection protesters and dropping his pants after persuading a concert-goer to participate in his “kiss my arse for a backstage pass” contest.
Police investigated him again in 2002 after he called another station pretending to be a traffic safety manager, suggesting motorists pass the time by “playing with themselves”.
Two years later, about 800 people had to be evacuated from three Northland beaches after Stables reported shark sightings and a sewage spill to Surf Lifesaving.
Reality TV co-stars Candy Lane and Iain Stables seen in 2008 to publicise the show Shock Treatment. Photo / Doug Sherring
During that same period, he also served as a judge on NZ Idol and was the first contestant to leave Shock Treatment, a show in which celebrities were sent to Jamaica to complete military training.
But Stables’ public profile started to fade about 15 years ago after a series of prosecutions unrelated to his entertainment industry stunts.
‘I have lost everything’
He was set to join Radio Hauraki in 2010 but the radio station ended the contract before he went on air after he was involved in a fight with a Jetstar employee upon arriving late for a flight.
“I said his airline was a f***ing loser and I called him a f***ing loser,” Stables told the Herald at the time, explaining that he suffered a concussion in the fracas.
The employee was charged with assault, while Stables faced a charge of disorderly behaviour likely to incite violence. However, the employee was later found not guilty after the court heard Stables had thrown a portable radio at him and a witness said Stables called him a “black motherf***er”. A judge described the radio personality as “aggressive and abusive” in the altercation, which was caught on CCTV.
Iain Stables in 2003, after he joined ZM. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Police subsequently dropped the charge against Stables. The Jetstar employee returned to his job but Stables’ Radio Hauraki offer was never revived.
He was also charged in March 2011 with threatening to kill, assault on a female, intentional damage and two counts of common assault after his ex’s parents tried to evict him from a flat in front of their Wellington property.
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While leaving the property, he repeatedly drove into his ex’s car. Stables insisted that it was an accident. He admitted pushing his ex’s brother but said it was in self-defence.
“I have nothing left,” he told a jury in 2012 when asked if he was being truthful. “I have lost my career, I have lost everything … what have I got to gain? I have already been screwed.”
Iain Stables appears in Wellington District Court for sentencing in 2013. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Days later, he was found not guilty of assaulting his ex’s parents but convicted of punching her brother. The jury was hung on the threatening-to-kill charge and prosecutors opted to withdraw the allegation rather than hold a retrial.
He was later sentenced to four months’ community detention for what the judge described as a “violent tantrum” and for an unrelated incident in which he punched an advertiser who was in arrears to a radio station where Stables was at that time volunteering.
‘Gonna hunt you down’
The latest incident took place at a TSB Bank branch in Auckland’s Botany Town Centre last year. Court documents don’t indicate what started the angry exchange with a security guard there, but Stables claimed it escalated to the point where the guard told him: “You f*** with me, you f*** with the Black Power”.
Stables fired back with a litany of threats to the company’s head office in three phone calls that same day.
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“So let’s look at security guards in the last 12 months,” he said on one call.
“Have they all survived, do you think? No, I don’t think they f***ing have, have they. Because they’ve f***ing threatened people and people have f***ing had enough of that s*** and then people take the law into their own hands, like I’m doing right now. What are you gonna do about that?”
Iain Stables photographed in 2006 after he was announced as a for NZ Idol. Photo / Chris Skelton
He later said: “You’re not taking me seriously, that’s the funny thing. You’re not. I’m so f***ing angry right now that if I even see one of your f***ing vehicles on the road I’ll f***ing run it off the road.”
Go ahead and call the police, he taunted, suggesting that he was already nearby with his “mates”.
“I’m not f***ing joking, mate,” he said. “So I’m gonna hunt one of your f***ers down now, okay, and let’s see how they like this. Cos I’m gonna do them far worse than what happened to me tonight, all right. You’ve been f***ing warned, all right.
“I’m f***ing coming after one of your c***s now, right this f***ing minute.”
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Not long later, Stables was driving by the company when he spotted an off-duty guard walking up the driveway. He braked suddenly, reversed and came to a stop at the top of the driveway, court documents state.
Shock jock DJ Iain Stables photographed at his Wellington home in 2010. Photo / Getty
“[The guard] was almost at the top of the driveway when Mr Stables accelerated his car at speed towards [him],” authorities said, noting that the defendant did not ultimately hit the stranger with his ute.
“You are First Security, f***,” Stables said, pointing at the man.
Frightened, the guard ran back to the office and colleagues called the police.
Stables chased him on foot before returning to his vehicle and driving away. Police caught up to him on the same street.
Protection from ‘cancel culture’
Stables first sought name suppression in May, after he had already pleaded guilty. The request appeared to be in response to the Herald applying for the case’s summary of facts.
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Suppression was granted by an Auckland District Court judge on an interim basis, but only until a more substantive hearing the following week in which Stables was required to bring an affidavit explaining why naming him might cause extreme hardship.
The suppression bid failed when he didn’t bring the document as instructed.
During an appeal hearing this week in the High Court at Auckland, defence lawyer Peter Eastwood argued that a radio network partially owned by Stables, Ski FM, could go bankrupt if his advertisers were scared off by the news.
Notorious radio DJ prankster Iain Stables seen in 2003 after he was hired by ZM. Photo / Brett Phibbs
“I’m up against it,” Stables wrote to the court, blaming “a difficult media environment” paired with “cancel culture”.
Stables also said publicity could slow his recovery from a serious brain injury.
He didn’t appear in person, his lawyer said, because he got confused about the court date. His attendance, however, wasn’t required.
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Justice Geoffrey Venning summarised the appeal further: “He notes that the media are generally disproportionately extreme and harsh reporting on other media operators. Mr Stables says he has worked for 34 years in the media and considers that he would be targeted.
“He says any publication or subsequent media would essentially end what has been 14 years [of] extremely hard work to develop and maintain one of the very last independent radio companies.”
Justice Geoffrey Venning. Photo / Michael Craig
Prosecutor Rewa Kendall pointed out, however, that Stables appears to have owned the same business and it survived when the Herald reported on his 2013 assault conviction.
“I still don’t have any affidavit evidence,” Justice Venning told Stables’ lawyer, explaining that he was instead given emails that “can hardly be said to be cogent”.
“There is public interest in the public knowing of Mr Stables’ identity and character, particularly, as the Crown submit, as he apparently works in a client-facing industry,” the judge said.
“The principle of open justice ought to prevail. Mr Stables has previous offending. It is not as though he has a clear record.”
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Stables’ lawyer asked for interim suppression to remain in place so he could consider taking the matter to the Court of Appeal. The judge declined the request.
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.
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