Hawke's Bay's Cook Islands rugby star Ioane George Ioane will still play in June's World Cup qualifier against Fiji despite being sentenced yesterday for mail theft and unlawfully opening more than 1700 postal items.
The 26-year-old appeared for sentencing in Napier District Court after pleading guilty to charges of theft by a person in a special relationship and unlawfully opening mail items while he was employed as an on-call postal worker in 2012.
Judge Tony Adeane sentenced the Hastings club rugby player to six months community detention, 200 hours community work and ordered him to pay $3000 in reparation to New Zealand Post.
The utility back has been named in the Cook Islands Rugby Union's 24 man squad for the Rugby World Cup qualifier against Fiji on June 28.
The Cook Islands will play Fiji home-and-away for the right to claim the last Oceania berth in next year's Rugby World Cup in England.
Ioane's lawyer, Megan Inwood, successfully argued for the community sentence to be deferred until July 1 to allow the 26-year-old to play in the qualifying match.
She said Ioane was a promising young rugby player and a sentence of community detention and electronic monitoring would have a "significant impact" on his playing career.
Ms Inwood also told the court that he was young man of "good character" and was "extremely remorseful" as attested in a letter to the judge by his premier grade rugby team at the Hastings Rugby and Sports Club.
Judge Adeane said the mail items opened by Ioane were mostly magazines but 20 were of a personal nature, such as wedding and birthday invitations.
But these were of "little intrinsic value".
- By Sam Hurley of the Hawke's Bay Today
