After a series of burnouts, toots and taunts, a carload of young people turned up to a farmer’s property for a fourth time, but this time he surprised them with his tractor.
Durk De Boer raised its bucket up towards the bonnet of the bright yellow Toyota 4WD before getting off and marching angrily up to them, armed with a metal pole.
What followed next was disputed in court – the teen driver says he was assaulted and only there to “look at the lasers”, while the farmer says he was simply defending his property.
But a judge ruled in De Boer’s favour, saying the teens told untruths and were deliberately being a nuisance that night.
“They were enticing a reaction, they wanted a reaction and they got a reaction,” Judge Philip Crayton said when reading out his reserved decision recently.
He ruled that the reaction wasn’t an assault but reasonable force to stop the teens from trespassing on his Waikato property on the night of November 2, 2023.
“This was not about lasers, this was about the complainant and his friends making nuisances out of themselves, no doubt having what they viewed as fun.
“It started with burnouts and noise, and it seems pretty clearly shown that it was intended to wind up a local resident, that’s why they returned a short time later.
“I do accept that the defendant was plainly, and understandably, very angry.
“The defendant went to ensure that the [complainant] and his friends stopped trespassing on his property, and of course, he was entitled to use reasonable force to prevent trespass.”
The judge said he was “absolutely satisfied that any threat, or minor striking of the victim’s vehicle, fell firmly within reasonable force”.
Delivering his reserved decision recently, Judge Crayton said police alleged that the complainant and three friends drove up Kay Rd, southeast of Te Awamutu, in his Hyundai Getz, to “look at some lasers in the night sky”.
However, after realising the road was a dead end, they turned around but then claimed they were chased by a car.
As they got to the end of Kay Rd, the vehicle following them tried to “T-bone them”.
The complainants then said one hour later, they returned to Kay Rd, now driving a yellow Toyota Surf owned by his father, having ditched the Hyundai Getz “for safety” reasons.
In their evidence, that was because they were going to look for the person who had chased them, to apologise and assuage any “bad blood”.
However, in their short journey up Kay Rd, they realised they didn’t know which property to go to and it happened, “completely by chance”, that they pulled into the driveway of De Boer, the judge said.
It was then that the complainant claimed he was struck by a tractor “several times”.
He then claimed their vehicle was driven backwards, striking De Boer’s son’s vehicle, which was parked behind them in the driveway.
De Boer then got out of his vehicle with a metal pole and tried to strike the complainant through the window “with force”.
“Fortunately, we are not left to rely on the evidence of the victim and the others because, bluntly, each witness ... took refuge in ‘I can’t remember it was two years ago’,” the judge said, recalling the evidence.
“That, of course, provided a significant impediment when counsel sought to test the consistency of their evidence.”
That was because there were several videos from that night.
Two were provided by the occupants inside the complainant’s car.
The first showed a tractor, being driven by De Boer, pulling in front of them and some “minor contact” with the vehicle.
De Boer lifted the tractor’s bucket and pointed it towards the complainant’s ute.
The judge found that it didn’t appear to have any “major contact” and said it was used more to ensure the car couldn’t get away.
The audio of the videos was also informative, the judge said.
“‘What the f***’ and ‘lock the doors’, ‘if he says anything, just say that he’s trying to ram us in the driveway’.
“That is quite informative.
“Then, there’s a female voice saying, ‘go back, go back’. That is also informative.”
The second video showed a “very angry” De Boer pictured at the driver’s side window, holding a wooden pole, demanding the driver’s licence.
“And he is not accepting what is being said to him.
“That is unsurprising and he says clearly, ‘give me your driver’s licence or I will smash your car’.”
Judge Crayton found that it wasn’t possible to assault the driver as alleged.
“I go further.
“Had that occurred, I have absolutely no doubt that it would have been something said [to] the defendant by those in the vehicle.”
The occupants were also heard saying, “we’re leaving, we’re leaving”, “we were looking at the lasers”.
“That’s said repeatedly, not ‘we came to apologise’,” the judge said.
But De Boer had four CCTV cameras, equipped with sound, on his property and it clearly depicted what happened.
The first visit was at 8.53pm.
There were two vehicles appearing to do burnouts, horns sounding, voices and laughing, which was all causing “significant disruption and agitation” to De Boer’s dogs.
The vehicles then left.
The complainant denied that one of those vehicles was his, but Judge Crayton found otherwise.
At 8.59pm, the complainant returned in his car.
As he drove up De Boer’s approximately 100m long, slightly curved, tree-lined driveway, honking of the horn can be heard, along with De Boer’s dog barking.
The vehicle tried to reverse out at speed, but repeatedly stopped and started to navigate the driveway, before accelerating away.
De Boer’s son was so concerned that he followed it.
At 9.07pm, the vehicle drove up to the property again.
When it left, there was heavy acceleration and then it waited, about 200m away.
The victim’s son followed again and the complainant’s car can be heard accelerating away.
The car returned again at 9.32pm, with its horn tooting.
It was this visit that the complainant suggested they had returned, looking for whom to apologise to.
The vehicle was reversed into De Boer’s driveway, where it sat for a “significant time”.
By now, De Boer was feeding out his animals and travelled over to the vehicle from his paddock.
What was shown on the CCTV images was very important.
“There is no nice way to put it,” the judge said.
“It establishes that the complainant and the witnesses are not being truthful.”
What the group didn’t count on was De Boer approaching from the road.
It was then that the confrontation took place.
“This was not about an apology,” the judge said.
“Durk De Boer was, and is, of good character.”
De Boer testified that he wasn’t the sort of person to commit this type of crime and that it was actually his son who was concerned about the repeated visits by the group of young people.
“He’d taken a stick with him and he was, he accepted, angry because they lied to him about why they were there – the lights.
“He accepts he may have hit the windscreen, the bonnet with his pole.”
The judge found the son’s evidence “reliable, truthful and consistent”.
Was there an assault?
“On my assessment, there was not,” the judge said.
“I accept the defendant’s account that he was seeking to ensure that the complainant’s vehicle didn’t leave.
“I do not accept there were repeated impacts with the tractor.
Judge Crayton said the only person responsible for damaging the complainant’s car was himself.
“Bluntly, as Mr Morgan put to the witness, was why there was no complaint about this until the defendant made an insurance claim.”
That happened three weeks after the incident, when the complainant went to police.
“I do accept that the defendant was plainly, and understandably, very angry.
“The defendant went to ensure that the [complainant] and his friends stopped trespassing on his property, and of course, he was entitled to use reasonable force to prevent trespass.”
The judge said he was “absolutely satisfied that any threat, or minor striking of the victim’s vehicle, fell firmly within reasonable force”.
He hoped that the group had learned an important lesson.
“That it is important to respect people’s property and their privacy.
“I expect that this was quite a rude shock for the complainant and his friends.”
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.