A Frankton beneficiary convicted of burglary, theft and receiving charges has been spared prison because of his efforts to turn his life around.
Deane John Jones, 51, was sentenced in Queenstown’s court last month, nearly two years after a spate of offending revolving around stolen vehicles.
Police say Jones and his associate received a Toyota Hilux stolen from near the Wye River bridge, on the Kingston Rd, in late March of 2024.
About a week later, the men unscrewed the number plates from another Hilux, which was parked in a rental car yard in Lucas Pl, and replaced them with those from the stolen vehicle.
Early on the morning of April 20, they were driving the stolen Hilux near Lake Pukaki when they drove down a farm track, climbed a fence and stole two containers of diesel oil from a shed.
About 6.40am the same day, they went into a construction site near Fairlie and stole a trailer.
The trailer’s owner, who’d fitted it with a GPS tracker and was able to monitor its location, caught up with the two men and confronted them.
One of the pair unhitched the trailer — which had the containers of diesel oil on it — before they drove off.
A second receiving charge stemmed from the theft of a Ford Courier ute in Queenstown some time between late March and early April of 2024.
On April 2, Jones sold a number plate from the ute for $3500 in cash.
The ute’s owner only realised it’d been stolen a few days later when he received a notification of change of ownership.
Jones and his associate were eventually arrested and charged with two charges of receiving, theft from a car and two charges of burglary.
Mountain Scene did not attend Jones’ sentencing in Queenstown’s court on January 13, but applied for a copy of Judge Mark Williams’ sentencing remarks.
Williams said Jones’ criminal history was more than 13 pages long, and included 43 dishonesty-related offences as well as convictions for drink-driving and breaches of court orders.
A pre-sentence report said his offending could be attributed to drug use and his ‘‘relationships with negative peers’’.
Since his arrest, he’d taken part in wellness, health and exercise sessions, and attended alcohol and drug counselling.
He’d completed a ‘‘positive lifestyle’’ programme and enrolled in a Te Reo course to strengthen his connection with his whakapapa.
After making deductions for the rehabilitative steps Jones had taken, Williams came to a nominal term of imprisonment of 20 months, which he converted to 10 months’ home detention at Jones’ Frankton address.
Williams said Jones had been to prison before, and it would be ‘‘very easy for me to send you to prison again this time’’.
He was taking a different sentencing approach because the defendant had ‘‘not sat around doing nothing’’.
‘‘You have actually reflected on your offending behaviour, and you have done something about it.’’
Jones’ co-defendant, who’s denying his part in the crimes and other alleged offending, has a judge-alone trial scheduled for next week.