Invercargill man jailed for threats

"You invaded her mind, you invaded her mind and you continued to invade her mind relentlessly over a period of two months."

Those were the words used by Judge Kevin Phillips in the Invercargill District Court on Thursday when he sentenced Invercargill man Ethan Arthur Reynolds (28) to 19 months’ jail for five breaches of protection order, using a telephone to send profane and obscene language, two charges of threatening to kill, assaulting a person in a family relationship, attempting to pervert the course of justice and aggravated driving while suspended.

The offending took place in Invercargill between January 26 and March 23 this year.

It was on the same day he was released from prison that Reynolds began to torment his former partner in a barrage of texts, calls and messages.

Judge Phillips said while the definite number of messages and phone calls were not known, the victim — who was granted name suppression — was contacted about 80 to 90 times.

Crown counsel Sarah McKenzie said some threatening to kill charges were hard to discern.

"In this case it’s very clear and substantiated by the Crown — quite concerning, these threats made by the defendant."

The profanity in the threatening to kill texts prevents the Otago Daily Times from printing many of them verbatim — however, Judge Phillips read out just some of the content which was sent to the victim.

The texts included messages of killing them both, saying he would come to her and kill her and saying he would shoot her.

"You’ve ruined my life, I’m going to ruin yours", Reynolds said in one of the texts.

While the victim told him to stop, he continued to torment her.

Nineteen Facebook messages and 26 text messages were sent on one day; on another, 30 more messages and nine phone calls were made.

Reynolds’ lawyer Sonia Vidal sought leave to apply for home detention, but Judge Phillips was not swayed as Reynolds had been assessed as unsuitable.

Judge Phillips said the victim continued to suffer from emotional harm as a result of Reynolds’ relentless and continuous offending.

"She says that she was just worn out by his psychological abuse which just got worse and worse.

"It has taken a major toll on her life," he said.

A pre-sentence report highlighted Reynolds’ propensity for violence, mental health and drug issues, and assessed him as being unsuitable for home detention, Judge Phillips said.

A test conducted assessed Reynolds as being high risk of causing future harm and he was deemed to be a manipulator of both the victim and his own family.

He allowed Reynolds to apply for home detention — but only to a residential rehabilitative facility which would accept someone on home detention.

The judge also disqualified him from driving for 12 months.