Serial tagger jailed for 14 months

A Hawke's Bay tagger who admitted causing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage has been jailed for 14 months. File photo / Thinkstock

A Hawke's Bay tagger has been jailed for 14 months after admitting to hundreds of tags over an 18-month period.

Blair Kitchen, 22, was sentenced in Napier District Court today after admitting four charges of criminal damage and one of possession of cannabis.

Kitchen, who used the tags Kron or Dots and Dotsone, originally admitted to 514 tags between July 2009 and November 2010, causing $102,000 of damage.

He subsequently said he caused $82,000 of damage from 476 tags but Judge Bridget Mackintosh said this discrepancy made little difference, the Dominion Post reported.

Kitchen's lawyer Eric Forster called for a sentence of home detention, saying he was now employed and maturing.

But two possible home detention addresses proved unsuitable and Judge Mackintosh said she felt imprisonment was appropriate.

She also ordered Kitchen to make reparations of $15,000 to his victims.

- NZPA