‘Brave and strong’ neighbour tried to stop burglar
A neighbour who tried to stop a burglar’s getaway and got wedged between a car and a fence has been described in court as “brave and strong” by a Christchurch District Court judge.
The neighbour had a shoulder injury which he says was aggravated by the March 23 incident and he also received a cut to his lip and grazes.
The burglar, who was raiding the house to feed his almost-$500-a-day methamphetamine habit, was today jailed for three years by Judge Stephen O’Driscoll.
Thirty-five-year-old Joseph Luke Tindall had pleaded guilty to charges of assault, burglary, driving while forbidden, intentional damage, failing to stop for the police, and dangerous driving.
Defence counsel Vicki Walsh urged the judge to allow him to apply for home detention during the jail sentence so that he could be transferred straight from the jail to a residential drug rehabilitation programme at Odyssey House.
In the end, the sentence was so long that there was no home detention option.
Mrs Walsh said at the time of the offence, Tindall had no home, no work, no income, no benefit, and was without food or shelter. The offending was “opportunistic and desperate”.
He had only wanted to get away in his car and had not intended to assault the neighbour who had tried to stop him.
Judge O’Driscoll said that Tindall’s life had been dominated by his need for methamphetamine and he had committed crime to fund his habit. He had 19 previous convictions for burglary or related offending. He had last been jailed for burglary in 2013.
In this case, he had parked his car in the driveway of a Fendalton house and had jemmied a door to get into the house. He had then taken items from inside the house and put them into a box before going to the garage where he was challenged by a neighbour.
The home-owner then arrived him and parked in the driveway behind Tindall’s car. Tindall got back in his car and rammed the vehicle repeatedly, causing minor damage to the home-owner’s car and extensive damage to his own car.
He managed to manoeuvre his car past the blocking vehicle, but injured the neighbour in the process.
By then, the police were on their way and they followed Tindall’s car as it sped at 80km an hour through St Albans before he stopped in Dee Street.
He referred to the intervention of the “brave and strong neighbour”, who had been injured. The home-owners felt unnerved by knowing that someone had been through their belongings.
He said there needed to be protection for the community when he jailed Tindall for three years, disqualified him from driving for a year, and ordered him to pay reparations of $8042 for the damage to the house, the car, and a fence.
Category: News
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Connect
Connect with us via: