Details of Kahu kidnap revealed

By PAULA OLIVER

It looked like just another short, innocuous notice in the Herald's personal columns.

Instead, it was a coded message from Donna Hall to the man who had kidnapped her baby, telling him the $3 million ransom he wanted was ready.

The message was published in the Herald on April 18, five days after 8-month-old Kahu was taken at gunpoint.

It read: "Tomme. Bunnies are ready to run. Call me on [mobile number]."

The kidnapper, Terence Ward Traynor, had given himself the code name Tomme in a handwritten ransom note to Ms Hall.

After reading the notice in the Herald, Traynor contacted her - and was arrested by armed police three days later.

The fact that Ms Hall was instructed by Traynor to place the advertisement emerged with other new details from the police file yesterday, when the 54-year-old was sentenced in the Wellington District Court to 11 years in jail. The maximum for kidnapping is 14 years.

Other information yesterday revealed that Traynor:

* Kept a diary of when Kahu ate, when he changed her and how long she slept, so he could learn her routine.

* Bought Weet-Bix for her after hearing Ms Hall tell a news conference that Kahu liked the cereal.

* Drove to Hamilton to get a soother for Kahu after Ms Hall told media she was teething.

Traynor was prompted to attempt a kidnap for ransom after he became depressed from losing what would have been his retirement savings on the sharemarket.

He intended to leave Kahu outside the Hamilton police station after he had received the ransom, which he wanted left near Lake Taupo. He planned to escape in a dinghy.

In court for one hour yesterday, Traynor did not flinch.

Wearing glasses, a white jacket and black trousers, he stared at the floor as he listened to lawyers debate aspects of his crime.

He looked up only when Judge Craig Thompson spoke to him.

Traynor was caught three days after the Herald carried Ms Hall's cryptic message. He had used his ransom note to instruct her to place the notice.

The ransom note was carefully handwritten in block letters because he thought the writing would be difficult to trace.

Traynor's lawyer, Tony Zohrab, told the court yesterday that his client accepted his crime would bring a significant prison sentence.

But two mitigating factors should reduce his sentence: his early guilty plea and the fact that he took good care of Kahu.

Mr Zohrab said Traynor was no stranger to offending, but he had kept clean for several years. That changed when he was convicted of assault in 1998.

Traynor was very disappointed about the assault and became depressed, said Mr Zohrab.

He recovered, only to lose a lot of money through a sharemarket investment in a tourism company that suffered after September 11.

The kidnap plan followed, purely for monetary gain, Mr Zohrab said.

Traynor regretted upsetting the nieces of Kahu's father, Justice Eddie Durie, who were present when he took Kahu.

He did not remember threatening them, Mr Zohrab said.

Crown prosecutor Ken Stone said the public regarded the kidnap of a person so young for ransom as a serious and despicable crime.

He said it should not be forgotten that Traynor left Kahu alone in his hideaway house for long periods.

Sentencing Traynor, Judge Thompson said he had taken a vulnerable and defenceless individual who had no prospect of escape.

"Quite cold-bloodedly you put this family through suffering they will never truly leave behind," he said.

The man who headed the hunt for Kahu, Detective Superintendent Larry Reid, said the sentence was likely to act as a deterrent.

"We may have personal views about sentences one way or the other, but the police role in investigations of this nature is to carry out the investigation, secure the evidence and put the persons before the court. It is the court's function to sentence those persons."

The sentence is two years longer than the terms given to two Hamilton fitter welders, Fred Orrell and Dean Ronald Creed, who each got nine years for abducting Hamilton resident Jenny Gallagher at gunpoint from her home in 1987.

Traynor was yesterday taken back to Rimutaka Prison to begin his sentence. He may be moved following a classification decision.

Speaking on television last night, Ms Hall said the family were putting the trauma behind them.

Pictures: Inside the kidnapper's hideaway

The ransom note

Full coverage: Baby Kahu kidnapping