Snapchat threats lead to jail term

March 30, 2015 | By More

Court House-Sept-2013-08A Christchurch man used the mobile app Snapchat to send his ex-partner a video of him holding a shotgun after making threats to kill.

The videos and messages only exist on that app for a few seconds before they disappear and are deleted.

The Snapchat video was mentioned among seven charges that Craig Maurice Jarden admitted in the Christchurch District Court today before Judge Jane Farish jailed him for two years five months.

The woman he threatened has written to the court describing the 23-year-old as an intelligent and capable man who had no positive role models as a child in terms of being able to deal with personal relationships.

She said she hoped that he would get the counselling he needed for anger management, as well as trade skills, while he served his prison time.

Jarden admitted five charges of breaching a protection order the woman took out against him in October – three of them by using psychological abuse against her – one charge of assault, and threatening to kill.

Jarden was in touch with the woman only days after the order was issued, initially messaging her through Facebook under another name. He also made 13 cellphone calls which she did not answer, and put an abusive message and a photo of her on Facebook.

He assaulted her by grabbing her arm, causing a bruise, and spitting in her face.

In December, he sent her Snapchat messages threatening to kill her, and then saying that he would stand at her front door with a gun and make the police shoot him because he wanted “to be free”, the police told the court.

One video message showed him with a large gun leaning on his chest, and saying, “Yeah, bitch.”

The woman replied to his message pleading with him not to use the gun on her.

Two days before Christmas, after the woman received 10 text messages and six phone calls from Jarden, he was arrested in an Armed Offenders Squad raid at an address in Linwood.

 

Category: News

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