{"id":244936,"date":"2026-01-21T20:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/244936\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:42:08","slug":"judge-calls-repeat-offender-daniel-barlow-absolute-menace-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/244936\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge calls repeat offender Daniel Barlow \u2018absolute menace\u2019 to community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Tony Snell said while sentencing Barlow in the Nelson District Court<\/a> this week for his latest bout of offending, including offensive use of a telephone, that his criminal history showed he was an \u201cabsolute menace\u201d in the community, and had been for many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to stop. Your offending is getting more serious and you have hurt people close to you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Barlow\u2019s latest offending was described by his lawyer, Ian Miller, as \u201cdeeply unpleasant\u201d, whereas Judge Snell said it was worse than that, and the charge should have reflected what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a rather innocuous charge for what was serious offending,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Offending \u2018extremely unusual\u2019<\/p>\n

Barlow created images, videos and \u201cnumerous\u201d voice messages of a highly sexualised nature which he sent to a family member, for whom Miller recommended a protection order so Barlow could not contact her again.<\/p>\n

Police prosecutor<\/a> Rebecca Terry agreed the offending, which she described as \u201cextremely unusual\u201d, had been under-charged, and made more disturbing because the pair knew each other.<\/p>\n

The victim now wanted Barlow to get \u201cserious help\u201d, and did not want to hear from him ever again.<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Lee Barlow was sentenced in Nelson District Court today. Photo \/ Tracy Neal<\/p>\n

Miller described Barlow as \u201chighly anxious\u201d and someone who was often in tears, which suggested he was struggling with what had happened and needed professional help.<\/p>\n

Barlow was sentenced to 18 months\u2019 intensive supervision on the lead charge of offensive use of a telephone, plus a theft charge after he drove off from a fuel station without paying the $30 he owed, and a breach of bail after failing to appear in court earlier.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he appeared via video link from the Christchurch<\/a> District Court, and narrowly avoided going back to prison.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sexualised noises\u2019 sent on WhatsApp messages<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said the summary of facts showed Barlow began sending the victim numerous voice messages from a WhatsApp account in which he made sexualised noises, plus videos of himself performing offensive acts in 2022.<\/p>\n

On the afternoon of October 25, 2024, Barlow phoned the woman six times and because she did not answer, he left further voice messages, saying things about her and wanting her to engage in sex acts over the phone.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell was not sure if Barlow was telling the truth about him not recalling what happened because of his alcohol consumption, but there was no dispute that he had done it.<\/p>\n

He said the woman felt \u201cfrightened and anxious, disgusted and betrayed\u201d, and sought counselling as a result.<\/p>\n

She was also left feeling unsafe, especially because of past events which had made her more vulnerable. <\/p>\n

In July last year, Barlow pulled into a fuel station in Wakefield, south of Nelson<\/a>, put $30 worth of fuel in his vehicle then went into the store and told them he had forgotten his bank card.<\/p>\n

He said he would go and get it from the vehicle but drove off. The theft was reported weeks later when he still hadn\u2019t paid, Judge Snell said.<\/p>\n

Sentence aimed to \u2018break circuit\u2019 of offending<\/p>\n

The judge said Barlow had been \u201csignificantly under-charged\u201d but he had to sentence him on what he was charged with.<\/p>\n

From an adjusted starting point of four-and-a-half months in prison, which factored in uplifts for Barlow\u2019s previous offending, Judge Snell arrived at the sentence of intensive supervision with special conditions after deductions for Barlow\u2019s early guilty plea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider that giving you intensive supervision is designed to try and break your pattern of offending over years, but if you breach this and are brought back to court, you\u2019ll likely go to prison,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake this chance with both hands because you have been wasting your life over the past 20 to 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also granted a protection order in favour of the victim.<\/p>\n

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ\u2019s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge Tony Snell said while sentencing Barlow in the Nelson District Court this week for his latest bout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12617,23503,74,1863,143295,1558,115,1259,1349,18829,1359,8241,3958,1362,143296,111,139,143298,69,17699,13018,143297,91929,30619,13743,213,61,8538,1354],"class_list":["post-244936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-absolute","tag-acts","tag-after","tag-back","tag-barlow","tag-been","tag-calls","tag-community","tag-court","tag-daniel","tag-described","tag-himself","tag-judge","tag-made","tag-menace","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-noises","tag-nz","tag-offender","tag-performing","tag-phoned","tag-repeat","tag-repeatedly","tag-sent","tag-sports","tag-to","tag-videos","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244936","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=244936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}