A signwriter who made fake Covid-19 vaccine passes in protest of what he thought was an unfair mandates system has today been sentenced to community detention.
Peter David Solvander, 61, who runs a graphic design business in Rangiora, North Canterbury, also had interim name suppression lapse today.
He earlier pleaded guilty to a forgery charge at Christchurch District Court, admitting counterfeiting a total of 30 My Vaccine passes and supplying them to people around the country.
The summary of facts says Solvander copied the My Vaccine Pass from online and created a false template on his office computer.
He believed that unvaccinated people were being "unfairly disadvantaged" by being unable to get legitimate My Vaccine passes.
Although the counterfeit passes only had generic QR codes, which were not unique to individuals and wouldn't function if scanned, they could likely pass a quick visual check.
In January this year, Solvander printed and supplied counterfeit passes to a number of people in Canterbury and a few others around New Zealand, the summary says.
Police identified 30 counterfeit passes made by him.
On January 21, a journalist using an alias phoned Solvander under the pretence of wanting a vaccine pass to attend a wedding.
He told the journalist he was so disgusted by what the Government was doing that he wanted to help people as much as he could.
They agreed to meet that afternoon.
Solvander entered the undercover journalist's alias and date of birth into a template while, at the same time, completing passes for others.
He gave the fake pass to the journalist and accepted $40 which he said was koha.
At the time, he told the journalist that he'd made a pass for himself and used it to visit a family member in prison.
Police swooped on the property in January. When spoken to by officers, he declined to comment.
Today, Judge Tom Gilbert acknowledged that Solvander is "not a bad man per se, he's just done something stupid" but stressed it was important that any sentence "bites".
The judge said he had read a good pre-sentence report where Solvander regrets his actions, which he said happened at a time of personal stress.
Defence counsel Nathan Batts asked for Solvander to be sentenced to community detention rather than the more restrictive home detention so that he could keep operating his business and earning an income.
Judge Gilbert accepted that home detention would be very damaging for his business and potentially put it under.
"That is not something that I want to see," he said.
He sentenced Solvander to five months' community detention which includes a daily curfew of noon to midnight. He must also carry out 100 hours of community work.
A North Canterbury doctor was last December caught on camera issuing fake vaccine exemptions to patients.
Dr Jonie Girouard, who runs a weight-loss clinic in Kaiapoi, is an unvaccinated GP who was captured by Newshub issuing fake certificates and coaching patients on how to get away with using them.
The Ministry of Health confirmed earlier it had issued a $300 infringement notice to Girouard after finding she had breached the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Vaccination) Order 2021 by seeing patients in person without being vaccinated and without a valid exemption.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.