Pilot jailed over greenstone theft

A West Coast helicopter pilot, Harvey Andrew Hutton, has been sentenced to 18 months' jail for stealing 20 tonnes of greenstone which he says was worth about $115,000 but which Ngai Tahu says caused the tribe a loss of at least $650,000.

Hutton, 48, of Makarora, was granted leave to apply for home detention.

He was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court yesterday, nine months after a jury found him guilty on two charges of stealing Ngai Tahu greenstone from the Cascade Plateau in South Westland over a seven-year period from 1997.