Conviction quashed for Michael Cruikshank, who sent threatening emails to Jacinda Ardern

Michael Cruickshank stands outside the North Shore District Court in 2020. Photo / NZME

A man who was sentenced to one year in prison after sending intimidating emails to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern - including one in which he threatened to “personally wipe you off this f***ing planet” - has had his convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Michael Christopher Cruickshank was convicted by a jury in Auckland District Court in July last year and sentenced by Judge Brooke Gibson in March.

“We are advised Mr Cruickshank will imminently have served his sentence,” Court of Appeal Justice Simon France wrote in the judgment. “In these circumstances we consider a retrial order is not appropriate, and nor is one sought by the Crown.”

During Cruickshank’s trial, Crown prosecutor Dennis Dow said the defendant sent around 88 lengthy emails to government officials and agencies in a four-month period between October 2019 and January 2020. He regularly referred to Ardern and the Government as criminals, slave traders and state-sanctioned terrorists, but it was two emails in particular that went a step too far, threatening violence, Dow said.

The typo-laden emails were sent about 40 minutes apart on January 20, 2020.

In the first, he wrote: “if yo contune to supporting state terriorismjand act of war declared on a victim mnamely Mr Michael Christopher Cruickshabnka and decalre dact of war on my life by your NZ Police that i will personally wipe you off this f***ing planet and that is what younow face as an outcome. wear that Jaconda!”

The email was sent to Ardern, ACC staff, the media and others.

The second email, which included fellow Labour MP Andrew Little as a recipient, stated: “i dont think there is any question that I will blowyour feknhead of if your gas lighting on my life continues by your terrorists who declared this an act of war against me , you have kids who want to see you grow old as do i, so isuggest you place that into proper perspective, because after 20 years what ever it now costs me will cost you. take that to your terrorist run Police in NZ who are active state terrorists under your watch.”

Cruickshank was arrested three days later on three counts of threatening to kill, after police carried out a search warrant at his Auckland home.

“I’m usually pretty drunk when I go on a tangent and, yeah. the next day I won’t even remember sending them,” he told police in an interview played for jurors. “That’s the God’s honest truth.”

His lawyer said he did not intend that the recipients would take the emails seriously.

“Mr Cruickshank has a long-standing grievance with the Government stemming from the handling of a workplace injury he suffered in 1995,” the Court of Appeal decision noted. “In 2008 he was charged but acquitted of threatening to kill an employee of the Accident Compensation Corporation. It is clear Mr Cruickshank is increasingly preoccupied with what he views as his mistreatment.”

During a hearing before the Court of Appeal in September, lawyer James Carruthers argued that the judge during the trial should have given jurors better direction regarding how intoxication could play into their verdict.

The three-judge Court of Appeal panel agreed. Their decision was issued last month.

“The essence of the defence is that Mr Cruickshank was so drunk he did not really know what he was doing,” Justice France wrote. “Sending emails to addresses used often does not make unavailable an argument that when sending the emails he was not really aware of what he was doing and certainly did not intend anyone to take seriously the threat to kill contained within them.

“His claimed state of intoxication was plainly relevant, indeed central to the defence.”

It needed to be set out clearly in the judge’s summing up before jury deliberations began, the judgment said.

“We consider a core omission of this nature which goes to the heart of the defence is a miscarriage requiring a response. It follows that the appeal must be allowed and the convictions quashed.”