Two Wanganui men earlier convicted in the New Plymouth Court were sentenced on Thursday in the Palmerston North District Court to 18 months in prison for trying to influence witnesses in a 2010 trial.
Patched Hells Angels motorcycle gang members Shane Patrick Bullock, 44, and Robert William John Britton, 30, had pleaded not guilty in the Wanganui District Court to a charge of attempting to dissuade a witness from giving evidence in the trial of Hells Angels chapter president Wayne Tweedale in October 2010.
Tweedale eventually pleaded guilty to 10 charges arising from an incident in 2009, when he went to an isolated property north of Wanganui with the intention of sorting out a dispute over a piece of land. Shortly after the incident, Britton met two witnesses and told them they had 48 hours to get out of the house or their stuff would be thrown out.
A day before the 2010 trial, Bullock visited the witnesses with Britton and Hells Angel associate Shannen Britton, and told them he did not want them to go to court, and if they did not go, Tweedale had a good chance of getting off the charges.
