An Invercargill man has been granted permanent name suppression and a community detention sentence, allowing him to keep his job.
The 41-year-old man was sentenced on Wednesday in the Invercargill District Court after he pleaded guilty to a charge of kidnapping and another of aggravated robbery.
In November 2019, the man contacted his victim and arranged a meeting at an Invercargill address.
An associate of the defendant accompanied him to the meeting.
When they met the victim, both men demanded to know the location of an associate of the victim, who they believed owed them money.
The defendant’s associate, Andre Wikirihi Hona-Tangaroa — who was sentenced in June to 10 months’ home detention and 400 hours of community work — told the victim if he did not provide the requested information he would ‘‘snap his bones’’.
The victim was told he would have to pay the debt and was ordered to empty his pockets.
He was also asked to sign a vehicle change of ownership form and apply for a $2000 bank loan.
The victim told police he thought he would not get out of the house alive.
However, after some time, he managed to flee and barricaded himself in a neighbouring rest-home unit.
Counsel Roger Eagles asked the judge to consider community detention and to suppress his client’s name, as being named in relation to the offending would affect his employment and undermine the credibility of the place where he worked.
Crown prosecutor Mike Brownlie opposed permanent name supersession as the man had other convictions which were public knowledge.
Judge Walker considered a pre-sentencing report which said the man had committed the offending when he was unemployed and his explanation was that he needed the money to pay his mortgage and fund his addiction.
Judge Walker said that since then the man had solid and good employment and considered his work an important rehabilitative factor.
He sentenced the man to six months’ community detention and 100 hours’ community work, and ordered him to pay $1000 to the victim for emotional harm.
