Her lawyer Jackie van Schalkwyk said there had been a couple of issues in setting the matter down for trial due to her deteriorating mental health.
“This has not improved, and the Crown today offered no evidence to the charge due to the ongoing issues and that it is not in the public interest to pursue the charge.”
Judge Tony Zohrab granted a section 147 discharge, and the charge was dismissed.
The lead offender in the matter, who can’t yet be named, was sentenced to a total of two years and 10 months in prison for two sets of offending - one in Nelson for violence, weapons and drugs-related matters and the other for receiving stolen property worth almost $22,000 in Oamaru.
The Nelson matters related to an incident last July in which two men he threatened to run down at a bus stop fled to a nearby KFC restaurant, where staff locked the doors to protect them.
Other charges were withdrawn, while the woman was charged as a co-offender.
It was mid-afternoon on July 7 last year when the victims, a 50-year-old man and his 20-year-old son, were waiting for the bus outside a local bar and cafe in Tahunanui.
The man charged as the lead offender drove past and saw the first complainant at the bus stop. He accelerated and drove his vehicle at them.
The victim yelled at his son to run. They were terrified as they ran down the driveway of a nearby cafe and bar, which led to a car park at the rear.
The man continued to chase them in his vehicle, at times coming within a metre of striking the pair as they tried to escape.
Once in the car park, he stopped the vehicle, then got out and began chasing the pair on foot, with the co-offender allegedly also in pursuit.
The accused was carrying a black metal pipe which he swung at the older man, narrowly missing his head as he scrambled over a fence to safety. It ultimately led to the charge of assault with a weapon.
The second victim, while running away in circumstances where he feared for his life, caught his arm on a gate latch and received a serious cut as he fell, and grazed his forehead.
The pair then ran off to the nearby KFC, where they asked staff to call the police.
The accused tried to follow them into the premises but the staff locked the doors. Police then arrived and arrested the man and the co-accused at a nearby car park.
Judge Jo Rielly said the victim impact statement showed the younger of the two complainants was left shocked by what happened and in the days that followed he still felt worried and unsure of why it had happened.
His father, who described what happened as “terrifying”, said he had met the accused once before and had been left too scared to leave home out of fear it would happen again.
Judge Rielly declined an application for name suppression, based on public interest and the likely time from trial on an unrelated matter.
However, an interim order was imposed when the man’s lawyer indicated an appeal against the decision would be lodged, which has since been confirmed.
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.
