And Kieran Charles Brown also avoided jail for deliberately ramming the side of his partners car with the couples 2-year old son in the back while screaming "You are going to die. I am going to kill you" among other things.
Meanwhile the guys, including some Junior All Blacks, were gob-smacked when the guy on the door said they don't allow rugby players in the bar.
After being lost for more than 23 years, the Whangarei mayoral city chains have suddenly reappeared.
Whangarei-based businessman Trevor Griffith says it's hell filling the tank on his six-cylinder Holden these days.
"Family outings" in Rotorua will apparently be the first to go. An Independent Tauranga petrol station is doing its best to keep prices down. But when you are on a fixed income, if you've budgeted $20 for petrol, "that's all you've got."
Many more people are now apparently heading to second hand stores. In Dunedin they think its just greed. However record-high petrol prices are hurting small towns such as Oamaru the hardest.
Hamilton is apparently finished if they lose the town centre. Meanwhile if you hear really loud noises and feel vibrations throughout the Waikato hospital campus, stay calm.
Meanwhile Jordi Webber made it into a Boyband.
Rotorua doesn't want to be a dumping ground for serial-sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson. Masterton Mayor Garry Daniell wants to "banish the beast" as well. Meanwhile Wanganui District Council will hold another extraordinary meeting less than a week before the beast is released to the city.
Officials are looking at reopening tracks around the Mt Tongariro volcano.
Rotorua Boys' High School principal Chris Grinter has apologised for his students attacking a boy outside another high school named after Pope John Paul, which has been blamed on Facebook.
Two masked men armed with firearms have robbed the Welcome Bay Foodmarket.
The operations supervisor for Bayline Coaches was trying to remove schoolchildren from a bus stop where a pitbull cross was harassing them when it attacked him.
Yoda was on the trail of a criminal when a crossbred Staffie jumped the fence, crossed the road and attacked.
Some juicy information from KiwiRail has been leaked about the Gisborne to Napier rail line.
Hawke's Bay criminals are spending a lot of time at the gym at the moment.
On September 30, in the middle of the night on a wind-swept hilltop south of Hastings, David Walker will throw a switch - to the "off" position.
Descendents of the Lone Pine tree at Gallipoli will soon be growing in Hawke's Bay.
Meanwhile on Facebook, a $1000 reward is on offer if you can identify this brazen motorcycle thief.
Somebody dumped a dead calf by the Waiohine River and left it to rot.
While the hunting season for ducks has finished, there are still plenty of birds you can shoot at.
Anyone in the market for a rest home?
In Christchurch, bulldozers have targetted a fence with a not-so smiling AMI logo on it.
The bemused looks on the faces of Ashburton's early morning workers when they drove into the West Street car park yesterday apparently said it all.
Dunedin City Council staff visited an online auction site at work more than half a million times last month but is anyone worried?
Fourteen North Island school principals learned all about the life and times of celebrity sheep Shrek yesterday.
And if you haven't heard, the 90-year-old Greymouth war veteran got his $23,000 life savings back.
Top trending topics on Twitter in NZ at noon included: Wellington, Auckland, Facebook, Great, New Zealand and Twitter.
