'Misguided' safety advice brings jail term

Police accept a 21-year-old helped with rescue operations in the city on February 22 but his misguided actions two days later have brought a two-month prison term.

The jail term was imposed on Nathan John de Seymour at a sitting of the Christchurch District Court inside the Christchurch Men's Prison today. He has been in custody since his arrest on February 24 so he will be released immediately.

De Seymour had previous burglary convictions, but he pleaded guilty today when police dropped their burglary allegations and replaced them with charges of being unlawfully in a building. He also admitted charges of falsely representing himself to be an Earthquake Commission official.

Defence counsel Philip Allan said: "The police now accept that he had wanted to help, but he went entirely the wrong way about it, and that's why he faces these four charges."

Police prosecutor Anselm Williams said de Seymour went to two properties in Eastern Terrace, Beckenham, at 3.50pm on February 24. He introduced himself as an EQC inspection team member and went through every room of one house making his "inspection".

He made no notes or recommendations and the householder then called the authorities and spoke to the person the "inspector" had claimed to be. The householder then followed de Seymour to another address where he looked at damage to brickwork and said he would have to issue a red sticker if the wall inside had pulled away from the floor. De Seymour left the property when that householder also made a phone call.

He told the police he gave false information about his identity because he thought that otherwise people would not take his safety advice seriously.

Mr Allan said de Seymour had been assisting unofficially as a volunteer with rescue efforts on the day of the quake, and had been pulling people out of buildings. He had photographs of these rescue efforts on his cellphone.

He had asked one householder about a laptop computer so that he could use it to show him the photographs.

Judge Gary MacAskill jailed him for two months, saying: "Police accept that you were acting in a misguided fashion, and that you had been involved in assisting in the aftermath of the February 22 earthquake in an unofficial capacity. However, on February 24 you were acting entirely inappropriately."

- NZPA