Tākaka chainsaw incident: Ethan Phillips sent to prison for threatening ex with power tool

Ethan Phillips told the Nelson District Court he let anger "get the better of him" when he took a running chainsaw to the house where his ex was, cut up furniture and then hacked down a tree so she couldn't leave. Photo / 123rf

A man took a chainsaw to a house where his ex had gone, yelling at her from outside as he used the tool to slice up furniture and then cut down a tree so she and others couldn’t leave the property.

But Ethan Phillips claimed he was not a violent person and the offending was a lapse in judgment.

“I let my anger get the better of me,” he told a court this week.

His actions led to criminal charges of intentional damage, possession of an offensive weapon, and performing a threatening act towards a dwelling, for which he was sentenced to a short term in prison.

His lawyer Ian Miller said while the act was at the “higher end of threatening”, it was a one-off incident linked to what occurred that same evening.

Phillips had been living in Tākaka with a woman with whom he had been in a relationship.

On May 15 last year, the pair got into an argument and the woman went to a property nearby.

About 8.30pm, Phillips went there with a chainsaw and, halfway across the front yard, began revving the saw and yelling at the victim, police said in their summary of facts.

Another person at the property asked him to calm down, but Phillips went and stood outside the kitchen window, yelling at the victim that she had “ruined his life”, as he held the running chainsaw above his head.

Ethan Phillips appeared in Nelson District Court. Photo / Tracy Neal

He then cut an outside table and while smiling cut a wooden chair in half.

Phillips then cut shrubs and plants while yelling: “This is what I’m going to have to do, to get you out of here you f***ing p***y”.

Police said Phillips then cut a tree so that it fell across the driveway, which prevented the victim and others from being able to leave the property in their vehicles.

Phillips appeared for sentencing in the Nelson District Court via video link from prison, where he had been held in custody because of his conduct while on bail, Judge Jo Rielly said.

He faced a further charge of breaching community work, having failed to turn up on 18 occasions.

Judge Rielly noted he had close to 64 hours of a community work order left undone, which was cancelled once the prison sentence was imposed.

Miller said Phillips had recently been struggling in a “very transient phase”, which had ended with him living on the streets.

Miller described Phillips as a man with “a lot of vulnerabilities”, albeit a hard worker who had held jobs in concreting, fishing and building.

The 30-year-old had previously appeared in court for mainly alcohol-fuelled offending.

In relation to the current offending, Judge Rielly said his probation report made for “concerning reading”.

Phillips said he had drunk too many whiskeys and claimed that the victim had “defamed” him. The interview with probation had ceased, then resumed once Phillips’ attitude had improved, Judge Rielly said.

Despite not having a victim impact statement, Judge Rielly said it would have been “very frightening” for the victim and those in the house.

She said while it was concerning behaviour, she was satisfied it was situational.

From a starting point of 12 months in prison, Phillips was given credits for his guilty pleas and recognised mental health challenges before the judge landed on an eight-month prison sentence.

He was granted leave to apply for home detention if an address became available.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.