A man arrested at the border for breaching an order to take down two Facebook pages containing messages abusing a Tauranga dog attack victim has appeared in court.
Tarawhiti-Brown, who lives in Australia, appeared in the Tauranga District Court on Thursday last week and pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to comply with a Harmful Digital Communications Act order.
The charge attracts a maximum penalty of six months in prison.
Helen Fraser and son Ryan Tarawhiti-Brown outside the courthouse after Tauranga City Council's appeal hearing against Helen and Chopper.
According to the police summary of facts obtained by the Bay of Plenty Times, the day after the judge’s order, Tarawhiti-Brown “continued to operate the Facebook pages by only changing the name to ‘Chopper’s Legacy’.”
This meant previous comments remained on the page “for all the public to see”, the summary said.
In doing so, Tarawhiti-Brown failed to comply with the Harmful Digital Communications Act order.
The Tauranga court was told on Thursday that on December 22 police issued an arrest warrant in place of a court summons for Tarawhiti-Brown for breaching the takedown order.
When he flew into New Zealand on December 29 to attend his koro’s tangi, he was arrested at the border and his passport was seized.
Tarawhiti-Brown’s lawyer Beverley Edwards urged Judge Louis Bidois to discharge her client without conviction, saying he had no prior convictions and Chopper’s Legacy page was set up to promote awareness of animal rights.
She said subscribers of this Facebook page paid a fee to be linked to the page so the takedown order impacted them as well.
Edwards said Tarawhiti-Brown had not appreciated when he changed the page name that previous comments “would be rolled over” and he was willing to take down the Chopper’s Legacy page.
Police did not oppose a discharge without conviction if he did so, she said.
No conviction was entered and Tarawhiti-Brown reappeared in court the following day.
Edwards confirmed to Judge Bidois that a police prosecutor had seen evidence her client had taken down the page entirely.
Judge Bidois said he was satisfied a conviction was not required given Tarawhiti-Brown was a “first-time offender”.
He also took into account the guilty plea and removal of the offending Facebook page.
“Given the background, and given that the harm that had been caused by your failure to comply has now been corrected, I’m going to give you a 106 discharge [without conviction] so that means you have an unblemished record.
“So don’t do anything stupid like that again,” the judge told Tarawhiti-Brown.
Sandra Conchie is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 24 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional/community reporter of the year.
