Yesterday, the Dunedin District Court heard how the 50-year-old ended a string of offences in a violent showdown with police in July in which she was pepper-sprayed and handcuffed after attacking officers.
Topping interrupted Judge David Robinson’s sentencing remarks by claiming "they always hurt me first", but her anti-authority streak was on full view just seconds later.
When the judge opted against home detention, locking her up for 14 months, she casually tried to sidestep Corrections officers and leave the dock.
Topping was pinned down and eventually hauled out of the courtroom.
"Leave me alone; get off me," she yelled.
"You don’t understand this — I was doing well."
In August 2021, Topping was invited for a drinking session by Naomi Morrison at her Tanner Rd home.
Eight days earlier, Morrison had killed Ameria Whatuira at the property, and had left her body wrapped in bedding on the deck.
She and Topping buried the body in a shallow grave, doused it with perfume to mask the smell, washed the garden tools then went back to their alcohol. As an accessory to the murder, Topping was jailed for 13 months.
Since then she has been jailed for wild driving, and sentenced to intensive supervision for attacking police while on a bender and outlining her desire to kill Morrison.
The latest crimes that brought her before the court began with the theft of a speaker from a service station in March followed by a ham-fisted daylight burglary three weeks later.
The court yesterday heard Topping went to Wobbly’s Bar in St Kilda on a Monday afternoon and smashed a glass door with a barstool. She grabbed nine bottles of spirits and climbed through the broken window, all of which was captured on CCTV.
"It wasn’t too difficult to catch you," Judge Robinson said.
Topping was granted bail but soon fell foul of the law again.
A few days after she stole $88 of groceries from a Dunedin supermarket, police were called to her home after reports of someone breaking a window.
When they entered Topping’s room, the half-naked defendant rushed at officers and was doused in pepper spray.
She locked herself in a bathroom before coming out and lunging at police again.
The defendant was wrestled to the ground and was dragged off, yelling insults.
Counsel Deborah Henderson said her client was at "a crossroads" in her life, free of alcohol and now in a stable relationship.
But the judge agreed with Probation that Topping’s chaotic lifestyle made home detention unworkable.
