FILE PHOTO: TE KŪITI COURTHOUSE
Pleas entered A GUILTY plea has been entered by Apanui Paoro Emery to a charge of threatening to kill. He has denied wilfully damaging property during the same incident. He is due back in court in April.
Pound raider sentenced A WOMAN who was involved in a plot to free her dogs from Ōtorohanga District Council’s pound, causing more than $8000 in damage, has been sentenced.
Melissa June Houghton was sentenced by Judge Kim Saunders to 12 months of intensive supervision, which will be judicially monitored, for unlawfully getting into a motor vehicle and intentional damage.
Lawyer Gaye Grey said Houghton accepted her part in the offending, which saw a stolen car driven into the pound in December 2021.
She said the dogs were impounded because they were in a vehicle stopped by police because the driver was wanted.
Houghton’s dogs had supported her through very difficult events in her life, Gray said, and they were described as “her babies.”
Judge Saunders heard it was not Houghton’s intention to break into the pound and the vehicle was driven by a co-offender, but she accepted her guilt in being there and removing her dogs from the premises.
Gray said her client did not have the means to pay her full share of reparations, but she arrived at court yesterday with $250 to offer, which the judge accepted as a nominal reparation.
A man charged as being Houghton’s co-offender did not show up to court yesterday.
Charges denied SELWYN Allan Mckenzie has pleaded not guilty to charges of wilful damage and assaulting a person with a blunt instrument.
Trial date found A TRIAL date was allocated for Jason Wiari Hiriaki in May at Te Kūiti District Court. Hiriaki is set to defend himself against charges of contravening a protection order and assault on a person in a family relationship.
