Sue Dixon. PHOTO STEPHEN PARKER
Nigel Dixon has gone from cocky criminal criticised nationally for having $43,000 in traffic fines wiped, to jailed drug-induced paranoid schizophrenic, to Destiny Church Christian and now criminal again. Rotorua Daily Post deputy editor Kelly Makiha talks to his mother about why everything could have been so much different.
SUE DIXON uses the word embarrassed a lot.
It comes from having the unenviable role of being Nigel Dixon's mum.
Since Christmas she's been hanging her head at what her son has done now.
For years she's been been his biggest supporter, doing her best to see the good in him.
But now she's more than embarrassed. She's also angry. And not just at her son.
She says she warned police and mental health agencies towards the end of last year Nigel was on a dangerous downward spiral, but she felt no one listened.
While she doesn't believe her son would intentionally kill someone, she's amazed his actions on Christmas Day and Boxing Day didn't end in death.
On December 25, a drug-fuelled Nigel went to Rotorua's Hillcrest Dairy in a Subaru he had stolen and held up the lone woman behind the counter.
With his face covered and waving an iron bar, he demanded money and tobacco. He struck the woman, causing minor injuries to her head and hands.
The next day, the police were on his tail. Nigel led the police on a dangerous high-speed chase through the Bay of Plenty. It involved several police cars (two which were damaged in the chase) and the BayTrust Rescue Helicopter. Nigel was travelling at up to 160km/h on both sides of the road. Cars had to swerve to avoid hitting him. It finally ended when his car flipped on its side after he attempted to drive off a 2m high bank.
He later told his mother he thought he was a "commando" in a PlayStation game. When police arrested him, he was standing up inside the tipped over car rolling a cigarette. Weeks later he assaulted prison guards, saying he could see dead people.
This week Nigel appeared in the Rotorua District Court and was sentenced to three years' prison to be served at hospital as a special patient.
Sue accepted an invitation from the Rotorua Daily Post to tell her story because she fears what will happen if mental health agencies and police aren't allowed to do more to keep dangerous people suffering from mental illnesses off the streets.
In 2004 at 17, Nigel copped an early break from a local judge who wiped his $43,000 in traffic fines for 300 hours' community work. At the time the story made national headlines. But he never did his community work and his criminal convictions grew. So did his schizophrenia which was enhanced with the taking of illegal drugs. Since 2007 he has had two stints in the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre, an inpatient facility for those too unwell for jail.
When he was released, he came good. He eventually didn't need medication anymore and he turned his life around.
In October 2012, he revealed to the Rotorua Daily Post he had gone straight after getting help from Destiny Church.
He admitted he was once a "gang banger, trigger puller, car jacker and drug slanger" who "hated the cops" but had become a devoted Christian concentrating on being a good father and leading a straight life.
He said at the time: "I feel a million bucks. I feel full of love and happiness for life and what's in store for me. Nothing is impossible. Anything is possible."
Sue's face lights up when she tells of Nigel's straight days.
Sue doesn't pass herself off as being a role model mother, but it's clear she's always there for her six kids, despite the tag of being a solo mum.
As we nibble on her home-made cake in her modest lounge, we are surrounded by family photos on the wall. She beams with pride as she tells us about some of her kids' achievements.
Among them are stories about Nigel. He made the pages of theRotorua Daily Post as a kid after successfully arguing with the then mayor and district councillors that Eastside children needed a skate park. She recalls the council were quite taken with Nigel. "Most people are for some reason," she boasts. "He's got the gift of the gab."
Although Nigel always had behavioural problems, it got worse after his elder brother and "hero", Matthew, was hit by a car and killed near Rotorua Airport in 2002. The following year his father died of cancer.
When Nigel became a Christian, he almost became "obsessed". While Sue was pleased her son was finally being good, she still worried.
"It worked for a while. He thinks I didn't like him being in the church but it wasn't really that, it was more he didn't have much money and everything is pushed towards giving them money and things would be better for them."
Nigel even went to Auckland for a couple of months to help Destiny build its "Super City".
He started learning te reo Maori at night, had a job, took a parenting course, was working out regularly and was helping young people keep out of trouble.
But little did Sue know, Nigel was progressively becoming more unwell. A few things didn't go his way and he didn't handle them well.
Sue says he turned to legal highs (synthetic cannabis) to calm him down.
"It went from legals, to marijuana to P. Graduated like that. I told him he needed to get help.
"He kept saying 'I might as well go back to my old life'. He'd say 'I tried, and I've tried'. I think he was losing his faith."
Throughout November and December last year their lives changed. She started to fear Nigel and she saw his schizophrenia return.
"Next minute the eyes would change and the voice would change and I knew it was time to get out of there."
She spent many hours hiding in her bedroom just trying to keep out of his way.
"He would sit in [the lounge] and stare, he had about three or four personalities. One had a really deep voice, the kids nicknamed him Chuck E. He was scary alright."
Although Nigel never hit Sue, she admits a few times she was scared.
"My sons made sure they always had one of them home."
A few times she had to call the police - once when he got angry and picked up the television and threw it at her.
"I remember something coming flying at me. The kids yelled 'boot it, he's got a TV'."
She showed us the hole that's still in the wall from that.
During those months she went back and forward to police, Ward 4 at Rotorua Hospital and Te Ngako Community Mental Health Rotorua trying to get help. She also rang police on him.
He spent some time in custody whenever he was arrested but he would always be released within a few days.
"I rang the PET [Psychiatric Emergency] Team one night and they didn't want a bar of it. Said it was too dangerous and it was a police issue. Police told me there was nothing they could do [unless he broke the law].
"Everything he did, none of it was enough to keep him custody.
"Police, Ward 4, went up there, tried Te Ngako. Even threatened to go to the media. I kept telling them he was dangerous. He will do something. I was told he is an adult and he has to want to get help."
Sue says there must be heaps of other people going through this same ordeal with mentally unwell family members.
Sitting in on our interview is Sue's good friend and support person Bob Stiles, principal of Owhata Primary School.
Bob says despite what Sue has been through, she never changes - she's always the friendly host and dotes on her children.
"I have seen the good side of Nigel when he was helping youth," Bob says.
"I completely admire her [Sue] in terms of how she never gives up."
Bob says he saw Sue battle time and time again to get help as Nigel started spiralling out of control.
Police advised her if she got a trespass order, they could keep him in jail if he had no where else to live.
Sue didn't want to do it but she did. It took her eight days to serve it.
"I had to pick the right time. I knew if he was in custody, I knew it would keep other people safe."
She finally gave it to him on December 21, allowing him until the next day to find somewhere else to live.
He didn't take her seriously so the next day she went to the police station to ask to have him arrested.
He was arrested and charged but was out by December 24 - the same day he stole the Subaru and started his crime spree.
"Knowing now what he'd done to that poor lady at Hillcrest. That's embarrassing. You hide your head. I was just angry that nothing can be done . . . You go around and try to warn those agencies they are dangerous . . . It's like they were waiting for him to hurt someone or himself."
Sue says she feels no one wanted to help Nigel because his mental illness is enhanced with illegal drugs.
"I just feel really guilty . . . embarrassed that I have a son who could do something like that."
But Sue is determined not to give up and wants something to change.
"I don't want to go through this again when he's released the next time."
He lost an arm and a leg in a crash that killed three friends.