Then at 9.53am, Walton blocked a motorist's exit from a road with his high beam lights on, and then followed closely behind a vehicle, still with his lights on high beam, swerving at it several times.
He followed the vehicle for some time before overtaking it. The driver called police and at about 10.20am Walton was stopped.
Counsel Mark Sceats told the court Walton had shown remorse.
Judge Warren Cathcart said, “Punishing you is not the option here.”
The court heard Walton was subject to a compulsory community treatment order for mental health issues.
He was disqualified from driving for six months and ordered to pay $20 in reparation for theft.
Counsel for a man facing a single charge of breaching a protection order acknowledged there should be an appropriate uplift in his final sentence because of his history of offending.
Robert Charles Kaiwai was sentenced to home detention for four-and-a-half months, with standard and special post-detention conditions, including that he was not to use drugs or alcohol, or to have contact with the complainant.
Judge Cathcart said the offending was serious.
“What it is, is disobedience to the court order . . . it's a defiance of the court's authority,” he said.
The offending occurred between May 11 and June 20 this year. Kaiwai had been served with a protection order on May 11 for psychological abuse involving phone, text and Facebook messages which were threatening and intimidating. The messages suggested he would harm the complainant, and that he was on the way to do that. It included name calling, foul language, and the words, “hope you die”.
She responded by telling him to go away and leave her alone, but he continued to make contact, the court was told. The contacts made her insecure and have grave fears for her safety and welfare, and the judge said it was serious because of its content.
He agreed with counsel Mana Taumanu's submitted starting point for a sentence of 12 months, uplifted that for a month for Kaiwai's previous relevant convictions and discounted that sentence for his early guilty plea.
The sentence was also discounted because Kaiwai had voluntarily engaged in counselling at Tauawhi Men's Centre.
“If you were to do it again a term of imprisonment is likely,” the judge said.
Judge Cathcart said that although a man was facing his 19th conviction for driving while disqualified, things needed to be kept in context because most of those offences had occurred in the 1990s.
Ben Leo Gerrard, 54, had filed a Section 94 application to the court to not have his licence disqualified, and the court granted that but imposed a sentence of six months supervision with special conditions.
Gerrard was stopped in March as part of a routine police traffic operation. The court was told he had not been driving badly or drinking, and that it was 14 years since last conviction.
He has two children and has custody of them on weekends, and his daughter had asked her father to keep his licence. They had been enjoying their time with him, the court heard, and he had been picking them up from school and taking them out on weekends.
He had “the emotional spark” to change his behaviour. He was motivated to reinstate his licence, had undertaken the necessary tests, and NZTA deemed him approved to lift his disqualification. He was also in gainful employment.
Judge Warren Cathcart recognised that 19 previous convictions had demonstrated Gerrard's earlier poor compliance, but he had shown a measure of compliance in the past 14 years.
“If I disqualify him it will impact on his employment, because without the vehicle he would have to pay for the use of the work van,” the judge said.
“If I disqualify him the impact on the children will be obvious.”
