Abduction accused denied bail again

Photo / File

A Hastings mother-of-two charged with abduction has been denied bail for the second time in less than a month.

Leanna Marie Hodgetts, 39, who sparked a police hunt across the North Island in an attempt to find the missing 14-year-old girl she was travelling with, handed herself into Featherston police on June 5 after two weeks during which she made no contact with friends or family.

The teenager was discovered in Havelock North on June 4.

Hodgetts, also charged with unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, appeared in the Hastings District Court yesterday to apply for electronic bail, which was denied by Judge Bridget Mackintosh.

In an earlier application for bail last month, her lawyer Eric Forster told Judge Barney Thomas there was "clearly evidence of an association" between her and the teenager, yet police did not have an overwhelming case against her.

Hodgetts had given herself up freely and stopped running of her own free will, he said.

Judge Thomas said he believed she still posed a threat.

"The stage is set for an exact repeat performance of what happened in May," the judge said. He denied bail and said police had opposed the application based on Hodgetts' decision to take the teenager and "flee" when they intervened earlier this year.

"The complicating factor is it appears to be consensual ... the running did not involve abduction in the classic sense, but was more to do with the age of the victim."

He feared Hodgetts would "repeat [the alleged offence] with or without consent".

No pleas have been entered.