A former political figure and veteran protester who spat on a bar worker then fled police is “not proud of the way he responded”.<\/p>\n
Jack Mackie Brazil, 33, appeared before the Dunedin District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to counts of resisting police and disorderly behaviour.<\/p>\n
He has had name suppression since he was charged last year, but counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner did not pursue a permanent non-publication order.<\/p>\n
Brazil was an unsuccessful candidate for the Green Party in the 2020 election, standing in the Dunedin electorate.<\/p>\n
The defendant, who has been a prominent local figure in the anti-oil and gas movement, made headlines in April 2023 when he was shot in Roslyn \u2014 a crime that was never solved.<\/p>\n
The court heard he was at a central Dunedin bar late on November 27 last year, when he yelled at other patrons over comments he found offensive.<\/p>\n
He was ushered out of the premises by a duty manager then threw one drink into the face of an off-duty employee, smashed another glass on the ground and spat at the manager.<\/p>\n
The saliva landed on her leg, court documents noted.<\/p>\n
As the defendant walked towards the Octagon, police pursued.<\/p>\n
Despite being told repeatedly he was under arrest, the man denied that was the case and ran off.<\/p>\n
He was eventually caught and arrested in Moray Pl.<\/p>\n
Ms Saunderson-Warner, who described her client as “a motivated, intelligent man”, stressed the matter was at the “bottom end of the criminal spectrum”.<\/p>\n
The court heard Brazil, a law student, had began undertaking Stopping Violence counselling after his arrest.<\/p>\n
Ms Saunderson-Warner said the defendant\u2019s actions on the night in question had been a reaction to a perceived injustice.<\/p>\n
She also mentioned a history of trauma and a PTSD diagnosis.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s not proud of the way he responded,” she said.<\/p>\n
Community magistrate Sarah Steele said references provided from Brazil\u2019s supporters showed the crimes were out of character.<\/p>\n
He had no history of violence and she believed it was unlikely he would come before the court again.<\/p>\n
While there were no statements provided by the victim, Ms Steele acknowledged it would have been a “distressing incident”.<\/p>\n
Brazil was sentenced to 40 hours\u2019 community work \u2014 the minimum such term \u2014 and ordered to pay court costs of $152.<\/p>\n
The court heard the defendant would likely be given an “agency placement” rather than more physical community work because of a leg injury he had sustained.<\/p>\n
An application for a discharge without conviction, which had earlier been foreshadowed, was not pursued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former political figure and veteran protester who spat on a bar worker then fled police is “not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-531432","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\/531432","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=531432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}