KEY POINTS:
A judge has rejected a Christchurch man's story that he got back his Porsche 911 after it was car-napped and sold to him on a riverbank for $2000.
Instead, Judge David Saunders has found police had proved a charge that Carl Edwin Loader was a party to the burglary, where his Porsche was taken from a garage where it was being repaired and payment for the work was in dispute.
But he has not convicted Mr Loader for taking his own car. In the Christchurch District Court today he discharged the 43-year-old car salesman without conviction on condition that he pay $9508 for the work done on the Porsche, and another $500 for the cost of the prosecution.
The case had a hearing before Judge Saunders on Monday and he gave his reserved decision today. He ordered that Mr Loader pay $2000 of the outstanding bill within a month, and have the rest paid by January 31.
He refused a request from defence counsel James Rapley to suppress Mr Loader's name.
Mr Loader and the mechanic have been friends for 23 years but fell out over the work done on the Porsche. Even a meeting at the Fox and Ferret pub couldn't settle the matter.
The mechanic had a worker's lien over the vehicle, meaning he was holding it until the issue of payment for the labour and parts had been resolved.
Mr Loader tried to arrange to take the car for a test drive but that was also refused.
On May 22 last year there was a break-in at the vehicle service centre in the Christchurch suburb of Sydenham. The intruders clearly had knowledge of the alarm system because they deactivated it.
They moved several vehicles to get access to the Porsche which had no keys in the ignition, a flat battery, and a flat tyre. The Porsche disappeared, but the intruders touched nothing else.
Mr Loader was interviewed when it was found he had been reunited with his Porsche.
He told the police he had received a phone call from someone who asked if he wanted his car back. He said he met the man on the riverbank opposite Princess Margaret Hospital and paid him $2000 for the car.
Judge Saunders rejected that account, and held that Mr Loader had not acted honestly in seeking to recover the car. He was aware it was being held pending payment.
Mr Rapley asked for the discharge without conviction because a conviction would result in Mr Loader losing his job as a car salesman and might prevent him making trips to Singapore to buy cars to import.
He was aged 43 and no convictions of any sort on his record - not even for traffic offences.
"This is a unique situation where he had legal ownership of the car but he did not have the right to recover it in the way he did," said Judge Saunders.
- NZPA
