Rifle found by jogger ends in court appearance for community volunteer

A man, not the one in this photograph, 'lent' a hunting rifle to a mate without checking whether he had a firearms licence. Photo / Alan Gibson

The discovery of a rifle beside a river by a person out jogging set in motion a hard lesson learned for a highly regarded community volunteer.

The 26-year-old has managed to avoid a conviction for selling a firearm to an unlicensed person; a charge laid after he told police he’d lent the rifle to a hunting mate, who as it turned out was well-known to the police.

The charge of supplying a firearm to an unlicensed person carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison or a $20,000 fine.

The man’s lawyer, Yvanca Clarisse, said he should not be punished for supplying a firearm to a person he didn’t know was “unsavoury”.

She added that although the firearm had been dumped in a public place, by then he no longer owned it.

He was also granted permanent name suppression after his application for a discharge without conviction was granted in the Nelson District Court yesterday.

The Maitai Valley in Nelson, where a jogger came across a discarded firearm beside the river early one morning in January last year. Photo / Tracy Neal

It was granted not only because the consequences of a conviction would outweigh the gravity of the offending, but because of the potential harm to his plans to move to Australia.

Police opposed the application because firearms offending was classed as significant, not only in this country but around the world.

Judge Richard Russell determined the consequences of a conviction on someone of the man’s standing in the volunteer sector, and on his contribution to the community which he described as being significantly more than most people his age, outweighed the gravity of the offending.

It was early one morning in January last year when a person out jogging beside Nelson’s Maitai River found a rifle, picked it up and took it to the police.

It was traced to the man they eventually charged, who said he’d lent it to his friend, but who was found to not hold a firearms licence.

Despite the pair having hunted together at least 20 times, the defendant claimed he hadn’t known his mate was on the police radar, and assumed he had the right firearms licence.

His mistake was that he hadn’t checked this when as a licence holder himself, he should have known to do this before handing over the firearm, Judge Russell said.

“You should have been aware because you had just sat your firearms licence yourself,” he said.

“That’s where you fell down. I accept you did try to make it right by asking to get it back a number of times, but you should have tried harder.

“It was a mistake unlikely to be repeated,” Judge Russell told the defendant in reaching his conclusion to grant the application for a discharge without conviction.

Judge Russell also said the police accepted the defendant had not been involved in the illegal activities of his associate.

At his first appearance in court last November he initially denied the charge and sought a remand to allow time to review a police decision to decline diversion.

The court heard yesterday that the police had gone to some lengths in considering if the diversion was appropriate in this case, but in the end, the police hierarchy involved did not approve it.

The man pleaded guilty in December, but no conviction was entered and he was remanded during consideration of a discharge without conviction.

Judge Russell said because diversion was turned down he was able to consider it as a mitigating factor in assessing the gravity of offending, which he reduced from moderate to low under the Arms Act.

He said the defendant had lost his firearms licence as a result of the charge, and would now have to satisfy authorities he was a fit and proper person if he wanted to get it back.