A lone service station attendant barricaded themselves inside the petrol station after a homeless man who often begged outside threatened to kill the worker.<\/p>\n
The same man later used contactless payment cards he had picked up to buy tobacco and other items, and splashed a woman\u2019s feet with urine while relieving himself outside business premises just 40m from a public toilet.<\/p>\n
Jason McCutcheon was among a clutch of Nelson\u2019s homeless people described by a judge as \u201cfriendlier\u201d than those in other cities, but that didn\u2019t mean he wasn\u2019t a nuisance.<\/p>\n
The series of offences committed from late last year through to earlier this year, and for which he was sentenced in the Nelson District Court this week, included threatening to kill, speaking threateningly, using a credit card for a pecuniary advantage and excreting in a public place.<\/p>\n
Judge Tony Snell said McCutcheon\u2019s offending occurred against a backdrop of recognised mental health issues and a range of difficulties, including homelessness.<\/p>\n
However, he said McCutcheon\u2019s behaviour was affecting people and their wellbeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a multitude of ways, he is harming the community and I need to give some security to the community, or the court can try dealing with him holistically and keep him in the community,\u201d Judge Snell said.<\/p>\n
The most serious and lead charge on which McCutcheon was sentenced to 150 hours\u2019 community work was threatening to kill the service station worker.<\/p>\n
The court heard McCutcheon had previously been sentenced to supervision for disorderly behaviour and, as a condition of that sentence, was required to stay out of Nelson\u2019s CBD.<\/p>\n
Threat to kill service station worker<\/p>\n
McCutcheon had been begging outside a petrol station but went inside to purchase items one night.<\/p>\n
He threatened violence towards the attendant, who was working alone.<\/p>\n
After McCutcheon left, the worker locked the station\u2019s doors and barricaded themselves inside.<\/p>\n
The two charges of using a credit card for a pecuniary advantage followed his purchase of items, including tobacco, with contactless payment cards people had dropped, and which McCutcheon had picked up.<\/p>\n
Another incident involved McCutcheon urinating against the back door of business premises.<\/p>\n
A woman leaving through the door was splashed with urine when she opened it.<\/p>\n
Judge Snell described the incident as a \u201csad episode\u201d, noting it happened a short distance from a public toilet block.<\/p>\n
He said McCutcheon\u2019s latest offending added to 23 previous convictions, including for dishonesty, offensive behaviour and speaking threateningly.<\/p>\n
A probation officer told the court that despite being homeless and \u201cnot wanting to accept help with housing\u201d, McCutcheon had a positive history of reporting to Corrections on time, \u201csometimes earlier and more often than required\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nelson\u2019s homeless community \u2018friendlier than others\u2019<\/p>\n
Judge Snell said the homeless community in Nelson tended to be \u201cmuch more friendly and less aggressive\u201d than in other areas of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll communities have their Mr McCutcheons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McCutcheon\u2019s lawyer, Josh Friend, said his client had recognised mental health disorders but engaged positively with Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora M\u0101ori mental health services.<\/p>\n
Friend said much of the offending reflected a tendency to be \u201cloose lipped\u201d when people asked him to move on from areas around the city where he chose to spend time.<\/p>\n
Judge Snell said he \u201cmight be loose with his mouth\u201d but his comments were taken seriously by others.<\/p>\n
He said McCutcheon needed to know he was \u201cmaking a real nuisance of himself\u201d and that he had good support available and was compliant to some degree but \u201conly when it suited him\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said that sooner or later, the only option would be to lock him up.<\/p>\n
From a starting point of 180 hours\u2019 community work on the threatening charge, Judge Snell reduced the sentence by 30 hours to reflect McCutcheon\u2019s guilty pleas.<\/p>\n
He was also sentenced to 50 hours on the intimidation charges, to be served concurrently.<\/p>\n
On the charge of urinating in a public place, he was convicted and discharged.<\/p>\n
– Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lone service station attendant barricaded themselves inside the petrol station after a homeless man who often begged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-517325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517325","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=517325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}