Man who extorted $13,000 from a pensioner receives a prison sentence. Photo / APN
A pensioner has been blackmailed out of most of his life savings by a serial conman who threatened to spread rumours the two men were sexually involved.
Campbell Christensen-Knight has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for extorting up to $13,000 from his 77-year-old New Plymouth victim, whose name
is suppressed.
In sentencing Christensen-Knight in the High Court at Rotorua this month, Justice Graham Lang said the victim was unlikely to recover financially or emotionally from the offending.
Christensen-Knight - who has a list of fraud-related previous offences and was on bail at the time - approached the victim as he was leaving public toilets in New Plymouth in July.
He told the victim that unless the pensioner agreed to pay him large amounts of money he would tell people they had engaged in sex acts.
The victim insists he had never met Christensen-Knight before that approach but Christensen-Knight said he had been in contact with the victim previously.
He forced the victim to drive to the nearest ATM where large sums of cash were withdrawn. Two days later the conman phoned the victim, threatened him and forced him to withdraw more money. This happened again the following month.
The victim, who had been too ashamed to tell his wife, was then compelled to speak out. His wife insisted her husband complain to the police.
Christensen-Knight admitted his offending and pleaded guilty, although he argued he had only taken $8000.
He told police he had been abusing drugs and alcohol at the time.
In sentencing Christensen-Knight, Justice Lang said: "You have deprived [the victim] of the bulk of his life savings. You have brought untold grief and anguish to him and his wife. You have also placed him in a position of acute embarrassment.
"He no longer trusts anybody and that is not surprising. Not only that, but he is concerned about walking outdoors because he fears that you or your associates might be there and he might encounter them. It is likely he will never be able to walk about with the same degree of confidence that he had in the past."
Christensen-Knight was ordered to pay the victim $8000 in reparation at $50 a week.
