The Gloriavale Christian Community wants a public road near its compound closed to prevent attacks from outsiders.

Two families who defied their Gloriavale leaders to leave will tell their story to the nation on the television news show Sunday.

A Ngahere man who almost strangled his mother after earlier assaulting his wife was this week sentenced to 11 months in jail.

A judge has taken a German tourist's word that she will voluntarily pay thousands of dollars in compensation to a motorcyclist that she seriously injured in a head-on crash.

A rental car driven by a tourist smashed through the plate glass window of a Hokitika automotive workshop, giving workers a fright and causing $40,000 of damage.

The daughter of Gloriavale leader Neville Cooper, who walked out of the commune after 41 years, says the latest family to leave face a hard road.

Gloriavale Christian Community has responded to accusations they were living in a "false system", by saying that "no one is here against their will".

A 21-year-old Westport woman sold $12,000 of furniture -including a couch and fridge - from the furnished house she was renting.

A family of 14 have walked out on a West Coast religious commune to start a new life after concluding they had been living in a “false system”.

A driver was swept more than 200m downstream and found clinging to a tree after his small truck went over a bank and into the Buller River.

"There were dead animals in drains." A vet has described an horrific case of mistreating cattle on a farm as the worst he has seen.

A desperate plea by 15 bystanders for passing jetboats to rescue a 30-year-old struggling in the chilly waters of the Hokitika Gorge were ignored by the boaties.

Twenty people have rescued an American tourist from a West Coast cave after the woman suffered a suspected broken leg yesterday.

The craggy and wild Main Divide really does split New Zealand into two different landscapes, writes Bronwyn Sell.

A Reefton man who punched and kicked a cow at the Cape Foulwind dairy farm where he worked has been sentenced to community detention and community work.