Newstalk ZB
When a judge fined a family $138,000 for unconsented dwellings and building work on their sprawling rural property, it came with an order that the money be paid within seven working days. The fine was to be paid by an anonymous benefactor who contacted the courts the night before the sentencing of the Reid family from Katikati. But nearly eight months on, the fines remain unpaid, much to the frustration of Judge Kelvin Reid, who said he was “very unhappy”, and questioned whether the offer “was ever a legitimate thing”. Now the four members of the Reid family have been brought back before the courts to be resentenced in the absence of the fines being paid. ‘I’m very unhappy’ For two weeks last year, the family’s ramshackle rural property was the subject of a jury trial at which they represented themselves against 25 charges they collectively faced. The charges related mostly to unconsented building work and dwellings, and failures to comply with council abatement notices and notices to fix. Married couple Dhruva and Bianca Reid and Dhruva’s parents, Jason and Bhadra, tried to convince the jury that they should be able to do what they wanted with their land and were causing no harm. However, they were convicted on 23 charges. Without the assistance of the unknown benefactor, they were not in a financial position to pay the $138,000 fines. At the resentencing in the Tauranga District Court, Dhruva Reid attempted to address the circumstances related to the missing fine payment, but Judge Reid said he was “not interested”. “I don’t know whether it was ever a legitimate thing that you represented to the court on 24 September, I am completely uninterested in what’s been put before the court about the FMA allegedly intercepting the payment,” he said. “I’m very unhappy, I have to say, that the court is in the position it is now ...” The Reids say they received what appeared to be a payment confirmation, but had not been able to “independently verify” it. They attributed the failure to something going wrong in the “banking or administrative process”; they had earlier told the court that the donor claimed the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) had something to do with the failed payment. But Judge Reid did not accept these submissions. “The payment wasn’t made, end of story,” he said. He was left with the choice of substituting the fine with either community work or community detention. The Reid family spent two weeks defending 25 charges related to unconsented dwellings and buildings on their rural Katikati property, at a jury trial last year. Family’s health challenges The Reids had told the court, before September’s sentencing and before the benefactor’s offer, that they could afford fines of only $1250 each. “A level that is affordable for the defendants, and as they have offered, would be insufficient on its own to, in my judgment, deter others who might contemplate acting in a similar way, and insufficient to account for the overall gravity of the offending,” Judge Reid said. Therefore, he had to weigh community work or community detention. While presentence reports recommended community detention, Crown prosecutor Hannah Speight submitted that, in this case, community detention had only a small punitive element because the defendants lived and carried out their entire lives at their property. “I agree with that assessment that, in this case, because of the need for deterrence, community work is to be preferred ...” Judge Reid said. However, he had to consider the health constraints of the family, with Dhruva Reid the only one without current health challenges. Dhruva and Bianca are in their 40s, while Jason and Bhadra are superannuants. A Department of Corrections officer advised that the presentence report writers had canvassed options and, in Katikati, there were community...
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