an earlier court appearance.<\/a><\/p>\nHe was also charged with possession of police property, after he was found to have a tyre deflation device, known as a spike, as well as an \u201cobsolete and empty\u201d police notebook and notice to order a defective vehicle off the road (green-sticker book).<\/p>\n
He pleaded guilty to that charge, too.<\/p>\n
At the man\u2019s sentencing in the Tauranga District Court on Wednesday, his lawyer Michael Douglas said the spike and green-sticker book had been left in a second-hand police car, which the man purchased from Turners. He\u2019d been given the police notebook at a police \u201copen day\u201d.<\/p>\n
Douglas sought a discharge without conviction, arguing the nature of the charges would lead to consequences out of proportion for the gravity of the offending.<\/p>\n
The police prosecutor opposed the application.<\/p>\n
Interest in emergency services \u2018got the better of him\u2019, says defence<\/p>\n
Douglas said the conviction would give the impression of dishonesty but these were all items that came into his possession without any deception.<\/p>\n
It was a case of \u201chis interest in emergency services getting the better of him\u201d, Douglas said.<\/p>\n
The items had been seen by the man as \u201cmemorabilia, relevant to his interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Stephen Coyle was concerned the man hadn\u2019t, upon discovering the road spike and green-sticker booklet, gone \u201cstraight to the nearest police station\u201d to return them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should have been patently clear to you that police would not have intended to sell an ex-police vehicle with road spikes, and indeed a green-sticker book, left in the vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was \u201cfrankly concerning\u201d items such as the spike could be possessed by members of the public, given the \u201cpotential consequences if they are used inappropriately\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n
The police were tipped off by an anonymous informant through Crime Stoppers about the man\u2019s possession of the road spikes.<\/p>\n
The judge also had concerns the ambulance lights and siren had been installed in the man\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n
A psychologist\u2019s report had revealed what the man had planned to use it for.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou envisaged being able to use those lights if you came across a dangerous situation such as a vehicle accident or a fallen tree, so you could warn oncoming traffic,\u201d the judge noted.<\/p>\n
Judge Coyle later said this meant the man would have been in a position to be \u201cgood Samaritan, activating sirens and have some pseudo-official capacity\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said the man now acknowledged he should have returned the items, and he accepted the man had meant no harm by his actions.<\/p>\n
The judge agreed with Douglas that, on face value, the charges gave the impression of a level of dishonesty that wasn\u2019t present in this case.<\/p>\n
The charge of \u201ctheft by person in a special relationship\u201d usually related to people ripping off employers, sometimes stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n
If the man were to apply for jobs with a conviction for that charge on a background check, the judge agreed it would be difficult for him to get employment.<\/p>\n
There was a \u201creal risk\u201d any prospective employer wouldn\u2019t seek out further information about the facts of the offending.<\/p>\n
The judge concluded the man\u2019s offending wasn\u2019t \u201cmalicious\u201d or \u201cdishonest\u201d but merely centred on a \u201cwarped view of [his] hobby\u201d, with the man seeking to be almost \u201chero-like\u201d.<\/p>\n
Underpinning applications for a discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression were reports into the man\u2019s mental health and tendency towards suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n
The judge was satisfied publication of the man\u2019s name and entry of a conviction could have \u201csignificant and adverse\u201d effects on the man\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n
There had already been negative social media trolling, including comments that the judge described as \u201cvile\u201d and potentially warranting prosecution.<\/p>\n
The judge said the man\u2019s mental health, as well as the \u201cactions of irresponsible members of society\u201d on social media, satisfied the grounds of extreme hardship and he granted the man permanent name suppression. <\/p>\n
He was discharged without conviction.<\/p>\n
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When police conducted a search warrant earlier this year, they found it installed in his vehicle. This gave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,11428,95,10748,15970,124,15979,15969,15974,15972,15980,2082,71,15976,1360,14236,15977,2883,15975,15978,12469,5126,6804,15973,5158,111,43,139,69,675,1321,15971,1227,15981,6845,102,1339],"class_list":["post-13590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-ambulance","tag-and","tag-came","tag-conviction","tag-could","tag-crashed","tag-discharged","tag-emergency","tag-equipment","tag-fallen","tag-for","tag-from","tag-hato","tag-having","tag-held","tag-hone","tag-hope","tag-illegally","tag-installed","tag-interest","tag-john","tag-light","tag-longstanding","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-services","tag-siren","tag-tauranga","tag-tree","tag-vehicle","tag-with","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}