Parking meter raider jailed

Photo / Martin Sykes

Serial parking meter ram-raider Alan William Hayward has gone to prison for five years but has not been ordered to pay the $415,000 bill for the damage he did.

Christchurch District Court Judge David Holderness said any reparation order would be "a quite unrealistic and futile exercise".

Hayward had three months added to his sentence for his attempt to throw the police inquiry off the trail when he was already on remand in prison, by getting an associate to carry out more ram-raids using Hayward's method of offending.

He was for sentence after pleading guilty to 40 charges: 11 thefts, 10 unlawfully taking cars, and 13 charges of intentional damage, as well as the charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice over the ram-raids; two other charges of stealing cash; possessing tools for taking cars; and a breach of his parole conditions.

Hayward was jailed for three years three months for similar offending - described by the judge as "commercial criminal dishonesty" - in December 2006 and was released on parole on April 28, 2009.

He will still on parole when the Christchurch ram-raids took place from September to November 2009, when he took a series of Nissan Terranos - hefty four-wheel-drive vehicles - and used them to bash over the city's new-style parking meters.

He got about $23,000 cash from nearly 40 meters, causing $325,000 damage in the process. Car owners also reported damage, loss, and inconvenience from the series of offences.

Defence counsel Gerald Lascelles said Hayward, a 32-year-old labourer, had wanted to plead guilty to all the charges so that he could start afresh, with a clean slate, when he was released from prison.

Mr Lascelles said Hayward was maturing, and would show a willingness to reform.

"He has lived a lot of his life in prison and we are still dealing with a human being here."

Judge Holderness told Hayward: "You have again demonstrated that you are a recidivist offender and your dishonesty involves premeditation and planning".

He noted that Hayward offended while on parole - as he had done in 2006 - and said he had no confidence that he was reaching any sort of turning point in his life.

The judge added three months to the jail term for what he termed "a cynical attempt to sidetrack the police inquiry" through the conspiracy with his associate to continue ram-raids while Hayward was in prison.

He imposed cumulative prison terms totalling five years, with a non-parole term of two years six months.

"Protection of the community from your continued dishonesty must be a primary factor in this case," said the judge.

- NZPA