charges of recklessly firing a rifle<\/a> after a confrontation with two anglers on his land, which ended with shots being fired. He was acquitted on two charges and a third one was later dropped.<\/p>\nHe was also the subject of an episode of Neighbours at War after a standoff with neighbours. <\/p>\n
The driveway trench<\/p>\n
The February 2022 confrontation was captured on film by O\u2019Byrne\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
Justice Rob Osborne said in a recently released decision that the digging of the trench left the neighbour\u2019s driveway inoperable until urgent repairs were carried out the next day, resulting in an invoice of $1100. <\/p>\n
Two weeks after the incident, O\u2019Byrne issued an invoice to the neighbour in which he purported to charge her $210 for two hours\u2019 work with his digger.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the victim needed further permanent repairs on the driveway, resulting in an invoice of $3100.<\/p>\n
The 65-year-old neighbour described in a victim impact statement her ongoing anxiety caused by the \u201clarge digger being relentlessly driven towards her\u201d, saying O\u2019Byrne appeared to her as an \u201cimplacable and hostile driver\u201d. <\/p>\n
She watched as O\u2019Byrne destroyed part of her driveway and swept away the fences on either side, saying the incident was \u201cone of the most unnerving experiences\u201d of her life.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Byrne\u2019s lawyer said the $4200 figure – the cost of making her driveway accessible and then the permanent repair – was unrelated to the task of refilling the trench.<\/p>\n
The invoices indicated the contractor was involved in obtaining and installing new pipes, an expense which involved betterment, not caused by the offending. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Byrne gave evidence at the trial that he had left the original pipes untouched \u2014 they were further along the driveway from the area excavated.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The incident was captured on film by Roger O’Byrne’s son. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Byrne submitted a letter from \u201cNigel Winter Excavation\u201d which stated he had asked for a quote on a job on a neighbour\u2019s driveway. <\/p>\n
From the examination, the job would take \u201c30 minutes at most\u201d. <\/p>\n
With a charge-out rate of $150 per hour plus GST the cost of pushing about two cubic metres of fill back into the trench would be $86.25. <\/p>\n
![\"Signage]()
Signage at the gate to Roger O’Byrne’s land in North Canterbury. Photo\/Al Williams<\/p>\n
No reference was made to replacing shingle over the driveway, a category of cost that accounted for more than half the neighbour\u2019s $4200 invoice. <\/p>\n
Justice Osborne considered the letter and viewed it as not meeting the threshold of credibility and cogency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe victim in this case has established in the District Court both the presence and quantum of her costs; Mr O\u2019Byrne did not appropriately establish an element of betterment within that quantum. <\/p>\n
\u201cMr O\u2019Byrne has not established the Judge erred in setting the amount of reparation in the sums ordered.\u201d <\/p>\n
The appeal was dismissed. <\/p>\n
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamat\u0101. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O\u2019Byrne, 75, was charged with wilful damage and convicted after a trial in September 2024. He was told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3404,6375,5432,1859,6384,802,6374,6376,6383,2837,6381,671,6377,3244,111,43,139,69,6373,6379,6372,3175,6380,6378,2742,6382,1316],"class_list":["post-4765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-anxiety","tag-appeal","tag-between","tag-carved","tag-confrontation","tag-costs","tag-digger","tag-dismissed","tag-driveway","tag-during","tag-erupted","tag-incident","tag-neighbour","tag-neighbours","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-obyrnes","tag-ongoing","tag-roger","tag-rural","tag-spat","tag-suffers","tag-thousands","tag-took","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4765","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=4765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}