Canterbury farmer Mark Stafford Feary has been found guilty of 14 charges of threatening to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the Prime Minister and government officials.
The jury took just over two hours to reach its verdicts on 14 charges on the fifth day of the trial in Christchurch District Court today.
Judge Raoul Neave remanded Feary on bail to July 22 for sentence and ordered a pre-sentence report but did not ask probation officers to check the 53-year-old Oxford farmer's suitability for home detention.
That may not be an indication that he will get a prison term as he could get a supervision or community work for the flurry of faxes and letters that finally got him arrested in February last year.
Feary defended himself, getting his day in court after a decades-long dispute with the Commissioner of Crown Land over farmland.
Feary indicated he would make his point even more forcefully by going to jail and then going on a hunger strike.
He threatened that in his opening address to the jury last week when he said: "My family is immensely proud to be able, through me, to inform you, the jury, of the corrupt government's bullying, terrorising, antics.
"Our two teenage children are fully aware that if I am found guilty I will be going to jail and they know full well that just as before I will not eat the corrupt government's food and I will not drink the corrupt government's water.
"While naturally my family does not want me to die, they accept that all other peaceful ways of protesting about the corrupt government's antics have failed."
Ironically he may not go to jail.
Feary said during his day giving evidence that the threats he sent were not meant to be taken seriously, and they were not taken seriously by the staff who received them in Wellington.
The Crown said that he had intended them to be taken seriously, and made them more explicit when he did not get the reaction he wanted. That eventually led to his arrest after he sent faxes to Prime Minister John Key reading: "It's killing time."
When the jury had announced its 14 guilty verdicts, Feary said from the dock: "I thank the jury."
During its deliberations, the jury returned to court to ask a question about Feary's state of mind. The judge told them there was no doubt about his fitness to plead, and he did not fall foul of the Criminal Procedures (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act provisions.
- NZPA
Farmer guilty of threats against PM
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