Two a penny

.

A massive police blitz in Auckland over the past four days concluded last night with 129 people facing drink-driving charges.

Road policing manager Inspector Gavin Macdonald said about 40,000 drivers were breath tested during Operation Safer Roads, where checkpoints were set up around the region, catching some suburban residents by surprise. The legal limit is 400mcg.

Police impounded 17 vehicles and suspended 34 people’s driving licences after they returned readings of more than 650 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath.

Mr Macdonald said 13 people were also arrested for offences including receiving stolen property, unlawfully taking vehicles, driving while disqualified and breaching bail conditions.

Court bailiffs were also involved in the operation, seizing an additional 12 vehicles and collecting $3000 in cash for outstanding fines.

“One offender actually complained after being stopped that the police had changed the location of a checkpoint whilst he had been drinking at the pub. .

Mr Macdonald said drink-driving was no joke and that police and the community had had enough of irresponsible behaviour by intoxicated drivers.”

The man admitted to having received a text message from a friend telling him which way to travel home to avoid being detected.

.

A man who stabbed an Auckland father as he supervised his daughter’s 16th birthday party has been found guilty of attempted murder.

A jury of nine woman and three men found Raymond Tonumaalii, 32, guilty of the charge at the High Court in Auckland this afternoon. .

“I wanted to know why he had stabbed me, I wanted him to look me in the eye and know what reason he had to kill me.

On Monday Mr Matamata told the court he learnt why Tonumaalii attacked him after sitting next to him at an earlier depositions hearing at Waitakere District Court.”

Mr Matamata said Tonumaalii said he had mistaken Mr Matamata for the man that had beaten him up at the party earlier.

“My children could have lost their father that day.

“I said, no mate, I was one of the guys that saved ya.

Crown prosecutor Warren Cathcart said Mr Matamata had been at home “minding his own business” about 2am on April 6 last year when he was attacked with a knife.”

Tonumaalii then apologised to him, Mr Matamata told the court.

Mr Matamata said he could remember little of the struggle.

The stabbing was seen by several teenagers, including Mr Matamata’s children, Mr Cathcart said.”

Tonumaalii suffered minor injuries in the scuffle.

“He had a knife, I was unarmed, I was just doing the best I could to stay alive.

The court was told he confessed to the stabbing when interviewed by a police officer in hospital the next day.

The court was told he confessed to the stabbing when interviewed by a police officer in hospital the next day. I was calm and collected and ready to take his life,” Tonumaalii said to the officer.

“I walked up to him and he laughed at me so I stabbed him in the chest.

.

Tonumaalii had later denied he stabbed Mr Matamata

.

Police have charged Paremoremo inmate George Baker after he allegedly took another man hostage in the Auckland prison the previous month.

Baker, 28, will appear in North Shore District Court charged with kidnapping, assault with a weapon and threatening to kill.

He was believed to have been armed with a makeshift knife and was demanding a transfer to a less secure unit.

The charges are in relation to an incident at Paremoremo prison the previous month when Baker, who has a history of mental health problems, allegedly took another man hostage with weapons improvised from the prison’s recreation room. .

Baker eventually freed his hostage, believed to have been an elderly sex offender, and gave himself up peacefully.

.

Baker is due to appear on 18 September

.

Guides are being praised for the speed with which they dug out two skiers buried alive by an avalanche of 100 metric tonnes of snow and ice. .

The second buried ski tourist was dug out within nine minutes and survived unscathed.

The dead man’s name had not been released last night.

The surviving man has been named by the Sydney Morning Herald as Melbourne multi-millionaire John Castran, 53, and the and other tourist – who was caught in the avalanche but not buried in snow – was said to be his son Angus Castran.

The Mountain Safety Council had issued a warning about avalanches in the Ragged Range, close to Methven, only hours earlier, saying the danger level was high.

The three Australian tourists were with two guides from Methven Heliski.

Police, the council and the Labour Department are all investigating.

It was remarkable the guides dug the tourists out so quickly.

Council avalanche programme manager Steve Schreiber said the group had been skiing for four or five hours before triggering the avalanche, which was about 200 metres wide.”

‘HE SHOULDN’T HAVE DIED’

Methven Heliski director Kevin Boekholt, one of the two guides in the expedition, said the dead man was buried a metre down. “It’s pretty heroic to be able to have the skills to get these people out, who are so deep, and to get them all out. He was under the snow but there’s a lot of air in snow. “He had his head up and he had no snow in his mouth. He shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have died. “We skied all over the world together.

He had skied with the dead man for 25 years. He’s like one of my best friends. We hang out together all the time. Mr Heuchan, 33, fell into a crevasse and was buried by snow.”

A mountain guide for more than 25 years, Mr Boekholt received a bravery medal from the Royal Humane Society, after he and two other guides worked in vain to save the life of Australian heli-skier Joshua Heuchan in 2004. “They were able to distinguish his track marks and began probing.

Westpac rescue helicopter general manager Simon Duncan said the guides used avalanche probes to search for the buried man who died.

Statistics showed a person buried for up to 18 minutes had a 93 per cent chance of survival.”

He described the area the group was in as extremely remote. “I suspect there was something else going on, maybe an underlying illness related to this. “I suspect there was something else going on, maybe an underlying illness related to this.”

.
Woman subjected to txt abuse after radio prank

By CLIO FRANCIS – Monday, 23 February 2009

The Edge radio station has been ordered to pay $1500 to a woman who received abusive text messages after her mobile phone number was broadcast live against her wishes.
A complaint about the incident was made to The Broadcasting Standards Authority, which today announced the complaint had been upheld. The BSA's report says:"After hearing certain comments on The Edge, the complainant wrote to the studio to ask that they stop making such comments. The complainant had asked whether she was on the radio. The hosts then telephoned her and she expressed concern that the hosts were making inappropriate remarks about people from other countries, such as India and America. However, the conversation was in fact being broadcast. They told her that she was not."Later when the conversation had ended, one of the hosts said:"If you would like to learn to be a better person, 021… He was interrupted by the other host who told him not to give out her phone number, however he continued to read out the last three digits. .RadioWorks, who owns the station, said they had upheld a subsequent complaint by the female listener, who said the broadcast of her telephone number breached standards of fairness and privacy.The woman said she received around 60 text messages after the public broadcast of her phone number- some of which were "highly offensive".They told the Authority that; a manger had reprimanded the radio host involved, the station had formally apologised and also offered to pay any costs incurred.They told the Authority that; a manger had reprimanded the radio host involved, the station had formally apologised and also offered to pay any costs incurred.

.However the BSA said the breach of privacy was serious enough to justify compensation and ordered RadioWorks to pay $1500 to the woman

.
Women fired because they were pregnant

By KATHERINE NEWTON Thursday, 04 December 2008

/The
DAMAGES: Former Auckland bar manager Sophie Melrose, with son Lukus, was awarded nearly $36,000 in compensation and lost wages after being wrongfully dismissed.

Twoemployers have been ordered to pay thousands of dollars in compensation for wrongfully dismissing two employees after they became pregnant.
Ms Melrose was demoted from her job as general manager at The Vulcan bar in December 2007, a week after she told her employers she was pregnant.
Former Auckland bar manager Sophie Melrose was awarded nearly $36,000 in compensation and lost wages, and former waitress Doris Chiu was awarded more than $22,000, in two separate cases decided by the Employment Relations Authority.
She has since given birth to a healthy baby boy, but said the loss of her job marred her pregnancy. . It was very, very stressful for me and my partner. "I lost all my maternity leave."
She said she was relieved to have won her case.
"I found myself always having anxiety attacks – my midwife was constantly checking my blood pressure.
"I just felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. "I always knew that what had happened was wrong, but to have that verified by a court was so good.
Her employers, Lina Megawaty and John White, claimed she had failed to provide proof of her entitlement to work in New Zealand, despite being a New Zealand resident."
Ms Chiu was fired from her job at the New Deli Cafe, Albany, in August 2007, a few weeks after she told her employers she was pregnant.
That information would have been discovered when Ms Chiu applied to Inland Revenue for maternity and parental leave.
However, Ms Chiu provided evidence that suggested her employers had dismissed her in an attempt to cover up the fact they had paid only one month of her PAYE tax to Inland Revenue.
"Her memory of the birth of her child will long be marred by what happened when she told her employers she was pregnant.
Authority member Alastair Dumbleton said Ms Chiu had been humiliated by being called "a liar and a fraud, and a fabricator of evidence". "We're being shown as people who discriminate against pregnant women, when we're not."
Mr White said yesterday that he was considering challenging the decision. "I can just imagine what it took for those women to have to go through all this while they were pregnant."
Maternity Services Consumer Council coordinator Lynda Williams said the cases made her despair.
Wellington employment lawyer Peter Cullen said firing a woman because she was pregnant was sexual discrimination and a breach of the Human Rights Act."
She hoped the cases would be a deterrent to employers who thought such behaviour was tolerable. "It's not often that people get discriminated against like that. "It's not often that people get discriminated against like that."

.
Nelson man carried 100m in raging torrent

By HELEN MURDOCH – Wednesday, 26 November 2008

HELEN MURDOCH/
SWAMPED: A car belonging to retired school principal Rod McKenzie lies stuck on the edge of a weir in the Collins River, north of Nelson, yesterday.

Rod McKenzie has covered a 100m section of Nelson's flooded Collins River in record time in his car.
"One minute I was on the road; the next I was in the river," he said.
McKenzie, a retired primary school principal, was driving to Nelson from his Okiwi Bay home in torrential rain on Monday when he aquaplaned over an 8m bank into the normally slow-flowing river.
He estimated he was carried another 100m by the swollen waters.
McKenzie was tossed down the "raging, roaring torrent" for about 100m before he fled his car. The worst part was trying to grab the blackberry bushes and clamber out, the river was moving so fast," he said.
"It was only when I got out that I thought I may be in trouble. .
Picked up by a farmer who took him home for a hot shower and a change of clothes, McKenzie then continued his journey to Nelson to collect his wife and take her to the airport.
"I suspect if I had stayed with it something bad would have happened.
"I've been told it continued down the river and got jammed under a bridge for a while before it popped out," he said.
The heavy rain also trapped three Tasman District Council hydrologists in the Upper Lee Valley on Monday night and caused flooding in Golden Bay and Nelson City."
McKenzie escaped with only scratches but faces an unpleasant aftermath police yesterday told him they were considering charging him with dangerous driving and he has to figure a way to get his car out of the river.
The trio bunked down for the night in a council ute, dined on a few biscuits and watched the Upper Lee River flood over a bridge, said Doyle.
Hydrologist Martin Doyle and two of his colleagues were measuring flood and sediment flows at the proposed Upper Lee Valley dam site when the heavy rain made the ford crossings impassable.
The ranges between Takaka and Collingwood were lashed by 328mm of rain in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday.
The persistent rain was pushed into the hills above Nelson and Golden Bay by strong northerly winds, dumping 136mm above the city and 257mm above Upper Takaka. Some schools closed early, while shops and homes were sandbagged to prevent flooding as water flowed down Takaka's main street.
In Golden Bay, roads were closed, stock were rescued from low-lying areas and the army ferried stranded motorists. "We were lucky to get away without major flooding.
"People haven't seen that sort of water across the road for some time," said Golden Bay Senior Constable Crispin Lee, of the East Takaka area.30pm high tide."
Nelson came within 30 minutes of a major flood when the rain stopped just before Monday's 8.
"We were concerned about the high tide, but the rain stopped about an hour before it came in," he said.
"We were concerned about the high tide, but the rain stopped about an hour before it came in," he said.

.
Brother, sister talk to police after attempted kidnapping

By JARED MORGAN – Tuesday, 25 November 2008

A brother and sister at the centre of an attempted kidnapping in Invercargill will be spoken to today by police and a psychologist specially trained in interviewing children.
Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Bowman, of Invercargill CIB, said the children would be interviewed to gain extra insight into the attempted abduction, which happened in daylight on Sunday.
A man tried to grab the four-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy as they played at the rugby league grounds on the corner of Ness and Ettrick streets about 3pm.
The man then grabbed the boy, but the pair managed to escape when the man went to open the van door.
He attempted to pull the girl by her arm into a white van but the boy held her other arm.
"It's certainly not something we've had for a long time here and of course one (attempted kidnapping) is too many," he said.
The incident and its timing was of concern to police, Bowman said.
THe officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Fred Shandley, said police planned to interview the boy today while his sister, because of her age, would be spoken to by a psychologist.

.

.
Fire closes down Far North power station

Northern News Friday, 21 November 2008

Northern News
FIRE HAZARD: A new fire rages at Ngawha, less than a day since fire destroyed more than 60 hectares of DOC land there. Inset: The corner of Ngawha village is closed off by police and fire crews.
Forestry workers were evacuated and fibre optic control cables linking parts of the power station were burnt through when the fire, which had been burning since Wednesday, flared up this afternoon.

A scrub fire which caused the Ngawha geothermal fire station in the Far North to be closed down was brought under control tonight.
"Once we knew we were going to lose those (fibre optic) controls, the station was closed down in an orderly fashion," he told tonight.
Top Energy chief executive Roger de Bray said the station was closed down about 4pm.
"If the fire flares up again they will call 111 but intrinsically it should be out," he said.
But by 9pm everybody at the station had been stood down, except two nightwatchmen and Mr de Bray said the Department of Conservation also had someone there.
Total damage would not be known until the morning and he did not know how long it would take for the power station to be fired up again. .
Department of Conservation fire crews regained control of the blaze using helicopters, backed up by the Fire Service.
The Ngawha Valley fire appeared to have been brought under control yesterday, but jumped Bannister Road into a Carter Holt Harvey forest about 3pm after flaring up again, said Fire Service spokesperson Jaron Phillips. At that stage forestry workers were being evacuated from the area because of the danger.
Earlier this evening he said the fire was "moving quite rapidly with the wind — it's out of control at the moment".
The fire had already burnt through private land and Maori land, as well as the Ngawha Conservation Area, Ngawha Scenic Reserve and the Lake Waiparaheka Scientific Reserve, regarded as a unique place because of the geothermal flora and fauna.
Police had also closed roads to the public in the area.
The first-floor fire was near the southern motorway, prompting a lot of calls from motorists, Mr Phillips said.
In Auckland, two people suffered burns to their hands and smoke inhalation after they were caught in a fire at a commercial unit on Great South Road in Manukau about 5pm.
–

.
The fire was extinguished within about half an hour and the two people were being treated by ambulance staff

.
Man charged over McCahon theft

Thursday, 20 November 2008

DEVELOPMENT: Police have today charged a 60-year-old Wanganui man with theft of this Colin McCahon sculpture.

Police have today charged a 60-year-old Wanganui man with theft of a Colin McCahon sculpture, which was later bought at auction for $25,000 by a prominent Wellington millionaire.
The iron cross sculpture was purchased by Lloyd Morrison in 2006 during an auction at Dunbar Sloane, but seized from his Wellington home in February this year after a complaint to police. .
The cross had been given to Wanganui artist Joanna Paul, a former student of McCahon's who died in 2003, then stored by relatives in a Wanganui building, from where they claim it later disappeared before being put up for auction.