October 09, 2012

Three guilty verdicts in blackmail trial

By David Clarkson

Three men have been found guilty of blackmail over threats made when about $35,000 in cash ? described as ?dirty money? by a witness in court ? went missing from where it had been buried in a deer shed on a Nelson farm.

A woman who was charged with assisting and encouraging the blackmail, 37-year-old Anna Heloise Horgan, of Nelson, was found not guilty and discharged by Justice Robert Dobson in the High Court at Christchurch.

The jury returned its verdicts at 12.40pm, after more than a day of deliberations, on the seventh day of the trial. About an hour earlier, Justice Dobson had given them the direction that they were allowed to consider 11-1 majority verdicts.

Those found guilty were Terry Jones, 43, of Nelson, who is Horgan?s partner, and Ritchie Stuart Clutterbuck, 49, and Leon Delshannon Turner, 37, of Christchurch. The jury returned majority verdicts for Jones and Horgan.

Clutterbuck was charged as a principal offender and the Crown alleged Jones had arranged the threats from inside prison, and Turner had assisted as a party.

Clutterbuck and Turner voiced their anger at the verdicts as they were being taken out of court. ?Never threatened anyone; never blackmailed anyone,? they said, and swore.

They were being closely guarded by prison staff at the time, at the end of a trial that had offered the jury a view into very different lifestyles.

The cash had been hidden on the farm at the request of Jones, because the farmer was an old friend. Some money had been added, and some taken in the months that followed but when it was to be moved, the farmer said he found it was missing.

The defence alleged that the farmer and his wife were responsible for the disappearance and the Crown alleged that Clutterbuck had met the farmer, with the support of Turner, in a carpark meeting in Christchurch to get the money back or place a security over his property for a large amount.

The farmer said a threat was made against his daughter. He was told it was lucky he was a friend of Jones, or he would not be walking. ?People go in the ground for this,? he was told.

Justice Dobson remanded the three in custody for sentencing on November 23 and asked for pre-sentence reports.

Kathy Bell and Arpana Raj appeared for the Crown. James Rapley and Steve Rollo appeared for Jones, Paul Norcross for Turner, and Bryan Green for Clutterbuck. John Sandston of Nelson was defence counsel for Horgan.