At times the council’s interchanges with O’Connell led to a temporary improvement but often they resulted in him being abusive and threatening to staff.
In 2018 the council finally sought enforcement orders through the Environment Court and those were issued by Judge Brian Dwyer on August 20, that year, when he ruled the activities on the property and reserve were “noxious, dangerous, offensive or objectionable”.
The orders gave O’Connell and de Cent 20 working days to remove everything from the road reserve and from places on the property where it was visible to other neighbours or from the street.
O’Connell failed to comply with the orders and found himself charged with breaching them, an offence for which he can be fined up to $300,000 or jailed for up to two years.
After going through a few lawyers, he finally pleaded guilty and appeared for sentence yesterday in Gisborne District Court, represented by counsel Leighvi Maynard.
O’Connell initially wanted to vacate his guilty pleas but given further time to discuss it with his lawyer, maintained them.
However, Mr Maynard reminded the court there had been previous indications for a significant sentence reduction if O’Connell proved he had since complied with the orders and got the property tidied up.
Prosecutor Michael Blaschke confirmed the property and road reserve were now tidy, saying a council officer had been that morning to check. However, Mr Blaschke noted the clean-up was “very 11th hour” as there were still vehicles in and around the property recently.
Mr Maynard said O’Connell was not someone who found it easy to ask for help but with the sentencing date looming, had finally gone to a longtime personal friend Arthur Bond, who allowed him to move the vehicles and parts etc into a paddock at his property, where they could stay for as long as necessary.
Mr Bond was in court to support O’Connell and had written a letter and supplied photographs as proof of the clean-up.
Mr Maynard said a probation report and other information before the court painted O’Connell as “entitled, angry, and confrontational”. However, the reality was that, as set out in Mr Bond’s letter, O’Connell — rightly or wrongly — felt targeted and had bad previous experiences with Council officers.
He had been through a relationship break-up with his partner and had other significant personal challenges that all contributed to his frustrations in this case.
People closest to him knew he was actually a caring, community-minded family man, as was also reflected in Mr Bond’s letter.
It was difficult to dispose of vehicles in Gisborne at present, Mr Maynard said. Much of O’Connell’s offending had happened during Covid. It also appeared that people thought of his property as a dumping ground for their unwanted vehicles and many were being left without his permission.
O’Connell’s request of wreckers to remove those vehicles were refused because he was not the registered owner of them.
Judge David Kirkpatrick reserved his decision on sentence but signalled it would likely be a mix of community-based options. Meantime, he reminded O’Connell the Environment Court orders were ongoing and that he could not slip back into his old ways of putting more vehicles on the property.
The judge declined a request by media to release a summary of facts about the offending and reserved his final decision on that too.
Judge Dwyer had also previously ordered the pair to pay the council’s legal costs of $23,505 but it has not been paid and the issue of it was not raised at the hearing. Normally the cost of the council investigation and prosecution would not fall to ratepayers as it would be covered by fines imposed, of which 90 percent goes to the council.
