A Dunedin man who threatened to put his lawyer in a suitcase and throw her off a bridge has been spared a sentence of imprisonment after she wrote in his support.
Richard John Steel, 48, also claimed he would decapitate a local judge during an 80-message tirade which contained "numerous sexual references, widespread and continual racial slurs, threats to harm or kill various people, and to damage government buildings", the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.
The defendant’s former lawyer, whom he referred to repeatedly in his texts as "a f..... cockroach" and a "bushpig", told the court she initially felt scared and anxious.
Later though, her stance softened. She acknowledged the man’s mental health issues and urged the court not to treat her ex-client harshly.
"I’m no longer worried for my safety and I’m not angry with Mr Steel. It must be tough living with the thoughts he has going through his head on a daily basis", the lawyer wrote.
Judge Noel Walsh said it was her "compassion and forgiveness" that convinced him to step back from imposing a jail term.
Steel was sentenced to 12 months’ supervision.
He originally came before the court following an incident in May last year when he refused to leave The Warehouse, in breach of a trespass order.
But it was five months later when Steel’s behaviour took a more menacing tone.
After slashing three flags outside a tyre company, he was seen walking down South Rd, brandishing a flick knife.
A police summary said the defendant yelled obscenities at one driver, flashed the weapon at another and "grimaced" at a motorist.
In December, Steel’s lawyer began working with him on resolving the charges, but despite her assistance, it sparked a massive outpouring of vitriol.
"I’ll throw you off the Auckland Bridge in a suitcase", he wrote in one message.
The defendant also instructed his lawyer to tell a specific judge she was "getting beeheaded [sic]".
"Tell your f..... judges if they don’t bow down too me I’m going to kill there f..... children [sic]", Steel wrote.
Amid the electronic rampage — excerpts from which filled two pages of the summary — he referred to automatic weapons, the mosque murders and setting fire to Parliament.
His new counsel, Anne Stevens, KC, said her client admitted he had "lost the plot", but there had been no further offending since he had been on bail.
She said imprisonment on the six charges would be "unduly severe" and Judge Walsh agreed.
He referenced Steel’s diagnoses and his poly-substance-abuse challenges.
"Given your complex personal and mental health issues a sentence of imprisonment could potentially heighten and increase your sense of bitterness and resentment to others, including the justice system", he said.
"I wondered whether I’d be simply setting you up to fail by sending you back to prison."
During the supervision sentence, Steel was prohibited from illicit drug use.
rob.kidd@odt.co.nz , Court reporter
