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For six years, Malcolm Everson had endured the presence of boy racers massing outside the small unit where he lived in industrial West Auckland.
He’d repeatedly called police every Friday and Saturday. But it was mostly to no avail, the 65-year-old told the Herald after his sentencing in the Auckland District Court on Thursday.
“They do turn up but not a lot happens,” Everson said.
In the past the boy racers had repeatedly refused his polite requests to move away from his unit, he said.
That was in contrast to West Auckland’s much-maligned siren battlers, who affix loud speakers to their cars and vie for who can blast music the loudest, and who were in Everson’s experience more reasonable.
“I’ve been out and I can talk to those boys and they move on.”
Matters came to a head one Friday in April last year.
A large convoy of car enthusiasts from Hamilton joined their Auckland counterparts for a gathering as part of what online advertising boasted was to be an “invasion”.
He raised his .177 air rifle and pulled the trigger. Everson said he was aiming at a car’s radiator but the slug hit a woman in the ear.
The diminutive pensioner later pleaded guilty to a charge of injuring with reckless disregard.
Boy racers were the bane of Malcolm Everson's life. Now he's been convicted for losing his cool after yet another gathering outside his unit. Photo / NZME
Judge Peter Winter said on one hand, Everson was unlucky the slug struck the woman.
But he was also lucky it didn’t strike her in the eye, the Judge said.
“Discharging air rifles in a public area is irresponsible,” Judge Winter said.
The judge said he in no way condoned what Everson had done, but understood he was frustrated at the activities of the car enthusiasts in his industrial neighbourhood.
“It had happened before that the Hamilton boys were up in town with their cars.”
His lawyer Petrina Stokes said a sentence of intensive supervision was appropriate.
Judge Winter agreed, saying he did not want Everson to be forced from his job by a more stringent community sentence.
He imposed a sentence of 12 months’ intensive supervision with conditions to attend an anger management course, ordering an emotional harm payment of $500 to the victim, who the judge said was traumatised by what had happened.
“Let’s not see you back, please,” Judge Winter said.
“Merry Christmas,” said Everson as he left the dock.
“Let’s hope it’s a quiet one for us both, Mr Everson,” the judge replied.
George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.
