Case reads like a horror movie, says judge

A judge has said a case in which a 61-year-old woman was terrorised for a year resembles a script from a horror movie.

Richard Steven Newport broke into the woman's Hamilton home six times. He rifled through her lingerie, stole jewellery then posted it back to her, smashed a glass door as she tried to beat him off, set fire to photographs of her and left the pieces burning on her bed, and finally stole a slug gun she slept with under her pillow. 

In sentencing the 46-year-old factory worker in Hamilton District Court, Judge Neil MacLean said Newport became fixated with the woman and "subjected (her) to a series of intrusions that sound in many respects like a script from a horror movie".

Newport was jailed for two years.


Judge MacLean said: "You carried out unspeakable horrid things in her home," he said. "It is clear this has wrecked her life.

"Clearly he is a very disturbed man whose thought processes are out of kilter," Judge MacLean said. "The motive is obscene, the reasoning bizarre and the impact on the victim enormous." 

Speaking outside the court afterwards, the victim tearfully described the trauma of waiting for the next break-in and not knowing who was attacking her home.

"I suspected everybody. I didn't know who I could talk to. Everyone I came in contact with was a virtual suspect."

On one occasion Newport smashed the glass panels in her door and she had to beat off him off with a vanity-unit door that she had been painting that day.

It was only when she installed security cameras and recorded footage of Newport that police were able to capture him.

She had been forced to move house, now has an unlisted phone number and had her name removed from the electoral roll. She had suffered from shingles, nightmares and hair loss.

She had only met Newport briefly about five years ago when a relative introduced them, but could not remember him.

He apparently held a grudge against her because he believed she had not attended her brother's funeral 14 years earlier.

"I was there as 300 people can testify," she said.

Defence lawyer Joy Allen said Newport had no intention to harm the victim, although she did not know that.

She acknowledged the bizarre nature of his repeat offending, but said he was not a risk to the wider public.

He had pleaded guilty early and was ashamed and remorseful.

Psychiatric reports said he was not mentally disturbed but showed he thought he was playing some sort of game, Judge MacLean said.

A letter from his partner explained that she was baffled by his behaviour.

Newport was granted leave to apply for home detention and was ordered to pay $7375 in reparation.

- NZPA