{"id":439701,"date":"2026-05-22T08:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439701\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T08:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:18:08","slug":"daniel-laidlaw-granted-parole-after-being-jailed-for-faking-whatsapp-messages-lying-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439701\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Laidlaw granted parole after being jailed for faking WhatsApp messages, lying to court"},"content":{"rendered":"

But Laidlaw\u2019s extravagant deceit, although initially successful, resulted in the woman \u201cSara\u201d (not her real name) going from being viewed as a potential victim to someone who had made a false complaint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At his sentencing<\/a> in April last year, in which he was jailed for two years, nine months and two weeks, he maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n

But now, after serving a year behind bars and having taken responsibility for the perjury and fraud, he will be released.<\/p>\n

\u2018The background\u2019<\/p>\n

After swiping each other on Tinder, the victim and Laidlaw, who was living in Rotorua, began chatting, and he booked the hotel room a few days later.<\/p>\n

At Laidlaw\u2019s sentencing, Judge Tini Clark said sex did take place, with the victim then leaving to get emergency contraception.<\/p>\n

The next day, Sara went to police, alleging she had been raped, giving them screenshots of their communications and undergoing a medical examination.<\/p>\n

Police did not ask to examine her phone, and after giving the information, she deleted the app.<\/p>\n

The following day she gave a video interview and in July 2021, Laidlaw was arrested and charged with rape.<\/p>\n

But by September 21, Laidlaw had created a screen recording of a bogus WhatsApp conversation.<\/p>\n

The screen recording suggested that immediately after the victim left the hotel, there was a conversation between the pair about her getting emergency contraception, and the condom breaking.<\/p>\n

He also alleged the victim stole some of his property and that he didn\u2019t wish to hear from her again.<\/p>\n

A report had been sought by police to establish the legitimacy of the chat, and it was initially deemed real.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until some months later that Laidlaw\u2019s forgery was discovered.<\/p>\n

\u2018He doesn\u2019t appreciate the reasons for offending\u2019<\/p>\n

The Parole Board noted Laidlaw was at a low risk of reoffending, and intelligent, given his engineering degree.<\/p>\n

He still had the support of his family.<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Laidlaw revealed that he lied and forged the messages because he panicked as he was expecting a baby.<\/p>\n

Through his counsel, Rob Weir, Laidlaw proposed to go back to the engineering profession once he was released.<\/p>\n

He had his own company before the offending and wanted to rebuild the practice, the panel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard from Mr Laidlaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a highly intelligent man and very complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have concerns that he does not really appreciate the reasons for his offending.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said that he panicked because he was expecting a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Daniel Laidlaw was jailed for two years and nine months on charges of forgery and fabricating evidence after creating fake WhatsApp messages to get off a rape charge. <\/p>\n

He had written a remorse letter, dated March 10, acknowledging the harm he\u2019d caused the victim, and had withdrawn an appeal of his conviction and sentence because he\u2019d recognised the stress it would cause the victim.<\/p>\n

Laidlaw had worked with a mental health clinician at Waikeria prison since July 2025. That clinician had concluded Laidlaw wouldn\u2019t reoffend and posed no risk to the community. <\/p>\n

However, the panel stated the clinician wasn\u2019t qualified \u201cto make those judgments\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is not a registered psychologist, and he has not engaged in the type of risk assessment that we would expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having said all that, the panel found that, given Laidlaw was a first offender, had been a \u201cmodel prisoner\u201d, had the support of his family and a suitable property to be released to, they agreed to release him.<\/p>\n

But that was on the condition of consenting to undergo psychological treatment when he was released.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe suggested to him that he focus on the cause of his offending,\u201d the panel wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate that it is unusual for a prisoner appearing at their first parole hearing to be granted parole.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we believe that with the imposition of robust release conditions, any risk that he does pose can be mitigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laidlaw would remain on special release conditions until July 2028.<\/p>\n

\u2018He only cares about himself\u2019<\/p>\n

When contacted about the news, the victim said she didn\u2019t believe he was remorseful and claimed she had never received his letter.<\/p>\n

In her opinion, he \u201cwill be doing and saying whatever he needs to get out of jail\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe only cares about himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of a baby was not only a shock, but she had no idea he even had a partner.<\/p>\n

She believed, \u201che [falsified] evidence because he was afraid of the consequences of his actions\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow did he not see that … was wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

She was shocked that he\u2019d now be able to get his business going again.<\/p>\n

She believed he \u201cshould be on house arrest at the very least to finish out his sentence\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that this man can just get his business back up and running and carry on as if nothing happened is abhorrent to me. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have been left with a complex form of PTSD due to his actions.\u201d<\/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":"But Laidlaw\u2019s extravagant deceit, although initially successful, resulted in the woman \u201cSara\u201d (not her real name) going from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,682,1349,18829,69674,2082,19196,14641,224611,156242,60677,111,43,139,69,47839,61,19607],"class_list":["post-439701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-being","tag-court","tag-daniel","tag-faking","tag-for","tag-granted","tag-jailed","tag-laidlaw","tag-lying","tag-messages","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parole","tag-to","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439701","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=439701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}