He did not ask to address Judge Nevin Dawson on March 13 as he was sentenced for dealing illegal drug GHB and for collecting what prosecutors have characterised as an “arsenal” of firearms discovered during a raid of his New Lynn home.
“It’s behaviour which is totally unacceptable to the community,” Judge Dawson said of the cache, describing the guns as “unsecured and readily available”.
He ordered a sentence of four years and one months’ imprisonment, added to his earlier sentence of two years and four months.
‘Punctuated by ineptitude’
It was far from the first time Lord had been chastised by a judge.
He already had a 30-year resume of robberies and other offences in December 2014 when a Melbourne judge sentenced him to seven and a half years’ imprisonment for a crime spree that started with a TAB heist described as having been “punctuated by ineptitude”.
Dwayne Micheal Lord, who was deported from Australia after a series of armed robberies, appears at Auckland District Court for sentencing in March 2026 after police reported finding an “arsenal” in his home. Photo / Jason Dorday.
Armed with a small pick bar and mash hammer, Lord and a mate rushed the manager of the Mentone TAB outlet in June 2012 as she locked up around midnight – “manhandling her roughly” before forcing her back inside and ordering her to open the safe.
DNA eventually linked Lord to the crime after police found a roll of duct tape he had brought with him. CCTV showed him on the floor looking for the tape after it rolled into a dark corner.
“Deprived of that tape, you threatened to tie up the manager with some scotch tape you probably found when you trawled through the offices,” Judge Frank Gucciardo noted at the 2014 sentencing.
The bumbling duo sat around with the manager for 30 minutes after the first attempt to open the safe failed. When it finally did open and they found $70,000 inside, they quickly fled before realising neither of them had grabbed the loot. Lord smashed the front sliding doors to get back inside.
‘Vile’ and ‘repulsive’
In a separate investigation later that year, police intercepted Lord’s phone calls and found him to be selling both MDMA and methamphetamine. Police were still tailing him on Boxing Day when they watched him burglarise the home of a work acquaintance who was on holiday. The next day, police recorded him instructing another man as he committed yet another burglary.
In another act that the judge described as both “vile” and “repulsive”, Lord directed others to burglarise his ex-partner’s house, assuring them no one was home when in fact adults and children were sleeping inside and terrorised by the intrusion.
Lord returned to a Melbourne courtroom in 2017, sentenced for the armed robbery and false imprisonment at another TAB in October 2012, just four months after the other robbery had taken place.
Police found 13 firearms and a stolen vehicle at 501 deportee Dwayne Lord’s West Auckland home in December 2024 after they knocked on his door for an unrelated reason. Photo / NZ Police
That time he held an imitation gun to the manager as she left around 10pm, forcing her to disable the alarm and open the safe. He and another man made off with $76,000 cash that time. But he wasn’t charged with that robbery until two years later, after his crime partner gave a full confession implicating them both.
“This offending was consistent with your other criminal activities and another example of your violent and terrifying behaviour,” Judge Clair Quin told him in 2017 as she ordered two-and-a-half years to be added to the end of the sentence he was already serving.
“It was a serious and nasty instance of armed robbery.”
The judge noted that, although a permanent resident of Australia, he was likely to be deported upon release.
“All of your family, connections and friends are in this country and you have no ties or links with New Zealand,” she acknowledged. “I accept the prospect of your deportation, having established your life in this country, will render your incarceration more burdensome.”
‘A blatant abuse’
At the time of his final Australian crime spree, Lord was running a mechanic shop with the hope of opening his own. Judges noted his previous good work history, “when not interrupted by incarceration”, in hotels that he owned and managed.
“Financial management has been your downfall with some gambling problems, which has led to criminal conduct,” Judge Gucciardo told him.
Soon after his arrival in New Zealand, Lord got a job as a mechanic and office manager at Midas Onehunga. But it was through the job that, within several months, he started offending again, court documents state.
Lord issued 78 warrants of fitness for customer cars between December 2022 and June 2023 while his boss – the only person authorised to do inspections – was overseas.
Dwayne Lord appears in Auckland District Court in March 2026 for his second sentencing in eight months. Photo / Jason Dorday
On most occasions, he did not bother to check the vehicles, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi officials said, referring to his flippant attitude towards car safety as “a blatant abuse of the system”.
Lord said in court that the certificates had been issued with his boss’s blessing, but he conceded: “Obviously, I shouldn’t have done it.”
Despite that offending, he reckoned he was doing relatively well during his first 18 months in New Zealand until he “ran off the rails” and started using drugs again.
During a traffic stop in September 2024, police found 9.4 grams of methamphetamine in his car along with $1200 cash, electronic scales, glass pipes, empty zip lock bags and a drug ledger.
Another traffic stop last March yielded more drugs.
For illegally accessing the NZTA computer system, he faced a maximum sentence of two years. Now with the methamphetamine supply charge added, he faced up to life imprisonment.
‘Significant concerns’
During his July sentencing, Lord asked the judge directly for mercy, and for another chance to “get back on track”.
“I just ask that you please consider I only have about 11 years of work life left,” he explained. “I want to work and build a little nest egg for retirement.”
Defence lawyer David Dickinson described his client as a low-level dealer who was offending to support his addiction. Lord had sought treatment while in prison awaiting sentencing, he said.
But the only appropriate outcome was imprisonment when considering his lengthy criminal history and the fact he was already subject to parole-like Returning Offenders Order conditions when he committed the new string of crimes, Crown prosecutor Jared Lowyim argued.
The judge agreed.
“Clearly, if that [warrant of fitness] system is defeated or used fraudulently, there are significant public safety concerns,” Judge Bonner said, allowing him a minor discount for background circumstances that included “a degree of dislocation in this country”.
He ordered a sentence of two years and five months’ imprisonment, but it was later reduced by one month on appeal. Lord’s lawyer had sought a larger reduction, arguing that the six-month uplift the judge imposed for his warrant of fitness offending was excessive and should be halved.
Auckland District Court Judge Stephen Bonnar. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
“This was premeditated offending which was particularly damaging of trust and with implications for public safety,” Auckland High Court Justice Jason McHerron responded, keeping the full uplift in tact.
“It is necessary to send a clear message to the vehicle testing and related motor vehicle industries that those who manipulate or abuse the vehicle inspection and certification system will be held accountable.”
Guns under pillows
However, Lord was cut a break as he appeared in court earlier this month.
During the search of an Onehunga apartment where he was living in September 2024, police had found 15 bottles of liquid labelled “aloe vera moisturiser” but suspected of containing an illegal substance. Investigators sent one bottle off for testing, confirming their suspicions.
“They’re clearly identical in appearance,” Crown prosecutor lowyim told Judge Dawson, arguing that Lord should be sentenced on the basis he had 7.2 litres of GHB total rather than just one bottle. “The clear inference is they all contain the same drug.”
Some of the guns officers found in Dwayne Lord’s home after visiting him for another reason. Photo / NZ Police
That may well be the case, the judge responded. But he didn’t budge.
“I don’t sentence on inference,” he said. “I’d be sentencing on an estimate based on a guess.”
Police arrived at Lord’s new home in New Lynn in December 2024 after months of repeatedly breaching conditions he had been subject to, including having waited weeks to tell authorities he started working again as a mechanic and refusing at first to tell officers his new address.
Such violations carry a maximum one-year sentence, but when police knocked on his door to speak with him they noticed numerous guns lying about and decided to investigate further.
This gun with its barrel sawn off was found under a pillow in the Auckland home of 501 and former armed robbert Dwayne Lord. Photo / NZ Police
Eleven guns were found in one bedroom, while two more sawn-off shotguns were found under a pillow in another room. One of the weapons was semi-automatic, meaning it would have been illegal even had Lord been licensed to own guns.
Lord claimed he had been holding them for someone else for the past week.
Also while at the house, police found a stolen car and a phone loaded with a social media app that he was obligated to report.
Opportunities squandered
Dickinson repeated his client’s hard-luck deportation story to the new judge, noting that Lord had served the entirety of his last sentence in Australia.
“For a couple of years he was employed and working very hard,” he said. “He had to start again when he was deported here, and he’ll have to start again when he’s released.”
Auckland District Court Judge Nevin Dawson. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The judge noted that there was no ammunition found in the house with the guns. But he also noted that Lord had been assessed as being a high risk of further offending and of causing harm to others.
Despite Lord’s expression of remorse, he continues to offend, Judge Dawson said.
“You have had many opportunities to change your lifestyle, but you haven’t,” he said.
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.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.