{"id":406402,"date":"2026-05-01T08:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/406402\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T08:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:22:08","slug":"zahn-reidys-meth-fuelled-crime-spree-culminates-in-theft-of-car-with-kids-inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/406402\/","title":{"rendered":"Zahn Reidy\u2019s meth-fuelled crime spree culminates in theft of car with kids inside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Referencing Reidy\u2019s short car-jacking incident, Judge Philip Crayton<\/a> said it must \u201chave been terrifying for the children\u201d, and \u201cagonising\u201d for the woman who was only trying to help him.<\/p>\n

The lengthy crime spree<\/p>\n

It began and finished all on the same day, December 17, 2024.<\/p>\n

It was 5.45am when Reidy went on to a Tauwhare Rd property and stole a handbag containing $2500 of property from an Isuzu truck, before taking off in a Mini Cooper worth $6000.<\/p>\n

He drove that to a Whitikahu Rd property and parked up on a stock feed pad, next to a Mitsubishi ute.<\/p>\n

Reidy got in the ute and drove off.<\/p>\n

Seeing this, the ute owner got in the Mini and gave chase, but lost sight of his vehicle.<\/p>\n

At 1pm, Reidy went to Driver Rd in Ng\u0101ruaw\u0101hia.<\/p>\n

\"ZahnZahn Christopher Reidy was sentenced in Hamilton District Court. <\/p>\n

Wearing a high-vis raincoat, he walked on to a property before leaving and going next door.<\/p>\n

He was picked up by her CCTV system trying the front door.<\/p>\n

Reidy left without taking anything.<\/p>\n

Thirty minutes later, he went to a River Rd property at Horsham Downs and took a child\u2019s FMX70 motorbike.<\/p>\n

However, as he was wheeling it down the driveway, he was confronted by the victim\u2019s dog, so he dropped it and left.<\/p>\n

A few doors down, a woman was at home when Reidy walked in. He grabbed her car keys and took off in her $7000 Holden vehicle, smashing it through a secured electronic gate, ripping it from its hinges.<\/p>\n

He then made his way to Elgood Rd in the stolen Holden, and cut his arm after breaking into a garage window.<\/p>\n

Reidy went to a neighbouring property and was standing at a ranchslider when the homeowner noticed Reidy standing there, bleeding, and holding a paper under his wrist to prevent it from dripping blood.<\/p>\n

He asked her for help, so she applied a piece of gauze bandage, before he told her to \u201ctake him away\u201d, saying that the police were after him and were going to kill him.<\/p>\n

She managed to persuade him to leave.<\/p>\n

Still driving the stolen Holden, Reidy then went to a Waingaro Rd property, where he dumped it, and swapped it for a truck.<\/p>\n

He then also dumped the truck and took three fuel cards.<\/p>\n

Reidy went into a house on Wilton Colleries Rd and took a set of keys.<\/p>\n

The victim saw him trying to open a gate and yelled out, but Reidy ran off to a neighbouring property.<\/p>\n

That property owner yelled out to him before calling police.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe intersection of Wilton Colleries Rd and Kereru Rd, Glen Massey. Image \/ Google maps<\/p>\n

Then, a woman was driving her Honda Civic down Wilton Colleries Rd, near Glen Massey, about 3pm when she spotted Reidy.<\/p>\n

Thinking he was a local, she pulled over.<\/p>\n

Reidy told her someone was trying to kill him, and he walked to the passenger\u2019s door and let himself in while asking for a ride, telling her he needed to go to the hospital.<\/p>\n

The victim started driving and, at the intersection with Kereru Rd, saw a police car and heard the officer yell for her to stop.<\/p>\n

Reidy told her to keep driving and shouted at her, forcing her to drive over road spikes.<\/p>\n

He then grabbed the steering wheel while the victim braked, slowing to a stop.<\/p>\n

Reidy then yelled at her repeatedly to get out before moving into the driver\u2019s seat and driving off.<\/p>\n

There were two young children in the back seat. <\/p>\n

Fearing for their safety, police used their vehicle to push Reidy off the road, blocking him in, before arresting him. <\/p>\n

Under the influence of meth<\/p>\n

At Reidy\u2019s sentencing, defence counsel Gerard Walsh said it was clear his client had a \u201csignificant\u201d drug addiction.<\/p>\n

Reidy was, and accepted, that on the day of his crime spree, he was \u201cterribly under the influence of methamphetamine … stumbling around the north Waikato, trying to get away from police\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it all ends with a very nasty endpoint, and that is something that the defendant does appreciate now in the cold light of day.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, while in custody at Manawat\u016b prison, he had completed several rehabilitative programmes, and when he was released, he hoped to return to the area and get a job.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, he was realistic; he had a lot of work to do on himself, Walsh said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Terrifying for the children\u2019<\/p>\n

Regarding the kidnapping, Judge Crayton said while Reidy\u2019s offending wasn\u2019t premeditated, but he was in the victim\u2019s vehicle without her consent.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou effectively took over the control of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, there\u2019s clearly the start of the kidnapping.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt involved a relatively short period but, two periods of very high-risk behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first was forcing the woman to drive over the road spikes, and then driving off and detaining the children in the car.<\/p>\n

\u201c[That] resulted in police having to use drastic techniques to stop you driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat must have been terrifying for the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have been agonising for the adults in the circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s only fleeting, it\u2019s difficult to downplay the gravity of the offending.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton said Reidy\u2019s delusions on that day spoke volumes for his \u201cdisorganised and distorted state of mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

After taking an overall starting point of five years and three months\u2019 jail, the judge allowed discounts for Reidy\u2019s pleas, background, and drug and alcohol addiction issues, totalling 42%.<\/p>\n

He jailed Reidy for three years, one month and three weeks, and disqualified him from driving for one year.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Referencing Reidy\u2019s short car-jacking incident, Judge Philip Crayton said it must \u201chave been terrifying for the children\u201d, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3944,6147,209281,78,2944,1899,87567,111,43,139,69,1118,209280,4743,14168,102,209279],"class_list":["post-406402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-car","tag-crime","tag-culminates","tag-in","tag-inside","tag-kids","tag-methfuelled","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-reidys","tag-spree","tag-theft","tag-with","tag-zahn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406402","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=406402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}