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Former Nelson mayor Rachel Reese confronted by terrifying intruder who ‘claimed’ her house (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 4 months ago by Ilovethebomb to c/politics

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The 41-year-old man was initially charged with unlawfully being in a building and on 1 March, he appeared in the Nelson District Court before a community magistrate who convicted and discharged him.

Uhh, what the fuck? How did anyone think letting this person go was a reasonable thing to do?

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[–] Dave 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Uhh, what the fuck? How did anyone think letting this person go was a reasonable thing to do?

It's hard to say since they won't release the details to the media, but I'd say most likely it seemed reasonable at the time. For example, perhaps he had medication that was controlling his delusions and hadn't done something like this before, but for some reason he stopped taking the medication. In this case, it may be reasonable to release him so long as he takes his medication. He doesn't, so he ends up back in court with compulsory treatment.

Schizophrenia affects an estimated 0.3-0.7% of the population at some point in their lives. There are different symptoms so not all incidents are like this case, but we are talking 15,000+ people in New Zealand. The court likely sees similar things a lot, and many, maybe even most, would not have any further incidents.

It's crap that this happened but I think I'd give the judge the benefit of the doubt.

[–] Ilovethebomb 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's also this though.

The man was arrested again on 5 March, after speeding from police on his motorbike when they tried to pull him over. He was charged with having carried out a threatening act towards a house and a person in it; failing to comply with a search, and two charges of intentional damage, linked to the events at Reese's property.

It sounds to me that the police didn't put the full story in front of the judge the first time, as the charges were different, and more severe, the second time.

It also definitely sounds like the house and the victim weren't chosen at random.

[–] Dave 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, possibly. But also they may have collected more evidence in the meantime.

I'd also bet a fair bit of money that the police don't have the resources they need to fully investigate. It sounds like the police might have got more evidence later, too. This part:

The next day, in the early hours of 2 March, the man allegedly destroyed hundreds of plants at a commercial nursery near Motueka, after entering the property on his motorbike and allegedly destroyed the CCTV camera when he noticed it, the police summary of facts says.

On advice from friends, colleagues and contacts within law enforcement outside the region, Reese went back to the police.

What was she bringing to the police? Is she linked to the nursery or is this sentence a separate statement saying she talked with the police some more about the initial break in?

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It reads to me that she went back to the police, and spoke further with them about that night, which led to the more serious charges being placed.

[–] Dave 2 points 4 months ago

If that's the case, it sounds like the only possible mistake here is that the police didn't spend enough time with her the first time. Like I said, I'd bet the police don't have the funding they need. Hiring freeze leading to 200 empty roles, plus an additional 175 redundancies to meet the governments cost cutting directive is probably not helping things.