Woman cleared after seven months' jail

A woman jailed for helping her son avoid arrest has been acquitted.

Whangarei woman Angeline McMahon was jailed for 18 months in March after a jury found her guilty of attempting to wilfully obstruct the course of justice.

The court was told McMahon enrolled her son Brandon McMahon at the Vipassana Meditation Centre near Helensville, north of Auckland, under a false name to avoid arrest.

He was on the run over the bashing of a lifeguard at Ocean Beach, Whangarei, in December 2006.

Mrs McMahon was arrested on March 23, 2007, and her son caught six weeks later.

The Court of Appeal, in a decision released today, quashed the conviction, and made no order for a retrial.

It said the reasons for allowing the appeal would be released later.

- NZPA