A young Milton man has been sentenced to almost six years' jail for a spree of offending - including kidnapping and aggravated robbery - which culminated in two high-speed police pursuits,
both abandoned, in and around Wanganui last year.
Jabe Tyler (19) was sentenced by Judge John Macdonald in the Dunedin District Court yesterday after earlier accepting an indication of a sentence of not more than six and a-half years' jail.
Tyler had admitted 18 charges, most of them committed with co-offender Luke Sears (24), in Dunedin, Kaikoura, Nelson, Wellington, Feilding, Stratford and Wanganui between May 1 and 15 last year.
He was yesterday sentenced to five years and nine months' jail for aggravated robbery, with concurrent prison terms of five years (kidnapping), 18 months (burglary), nine months (five vehicle thefts, possessing firearms and dishonestly using a document), and two months (possessing cannabis, three thefts of petrol, breaching community work and supervision and breaching his bail).
On a charge of driving while disqualified, Tyler was convicted and disqualified for another six months.
Tyler was already on bail for his involvement in March last year, with another young man, in the unlawful taking of a Hino truck from a Milton service station, the burglary of a farm shed at Kuri Bush, from where a farm bike was stolen, and the unlawful taking of a builder's Toyota van from Brighton, when he and Sears set off on their offending spree up the South Island to Wellington, then Taranaki.
The pair unlawfully took, and later abandoned, three Subaru Legacy vehicles from Dunedin, Nelson and Wellington on May 1, 2 and 3, filling each with petrol they did not pay for - although they tried, on one occasion, to use a cash card found in one of the cars.
They ran away when police were called but retrieved their stolen car and continued driving to Halcombe, near Feilding, where they abandoned that vehicle.
They were given a ride and a bed for the night by a Taranaki man and a friend and, the next day, after the man had gone to work, they tied up the second man, before stealing firearms and a large amount of cannabis from the Good Samaritan's house and driving away in the second man's car.
The kidnap victim managed to free himself and contact police. Tyler and Sears were pursued for 5.4km at speeds of up to 140kmh near Wanganui, dodging three sets of police road spikes, before police gave up the pursuit.
A second chase, at speeds of up to 100kmh, took place around several city streets not long afterwards, before it too was abandoned because of the danger to other motorists. Tyler and Sears were later found and arrested.
In the car, police found two firearms plus ammunition, 665g of cannabis head, 800g of cannabis leaf and 10 mature cannabis plants.
The kidnap victim had rope burns to his arms and bruising and tenderness to his head and neck where he had been punched.
