Rob Kidd

A veteran Dunedin gang kingpin got an unwelcome birthday present last week - a 15-month prison term.

When Robin Abraham needed a place to live, his friends agreed to put him up, but he repaid them by making "vile'' sexual comments to their 8-year-old daughter.

A Central Otago shearer who raped his ex-partner while making their children wait in the car outside has been jailed for six years.

The entries are in and incarcerated southern scribes face a nervous wait.

Dunedin criminals might be breathing a temporary sigh of relief — Judge Kevin Phillips is doing his final stretch.

A Mosgiel man burned down a state house because he was haunted by the memory of finding his auntie dead there five months earlier, a court has heard.

A Facebook predator with a "fixation" on young girls repeatedly lied to a 14-year-old until he got her on her own, a court has heard.

After her son was taken from her care, a Dunedin mother took her frustrations with Oranga Tamariki online.

A Dunedin man who had 251 rounds of ammunition concealed in seven different areas of his house was "up to something", a judge says.

A Dunedin man said he wanted to put a chain around his ex-girlfriend's neck, tie her to his vehicle and drag her to her death, a court has heard.

A man who beat his partner so viciously that she lost the sight in one eye has failed at the first hurdle in a bid to shorten his sentence.

A Central Otago man repeatedly tried to strangle his partner while their 2-year-old daughter begged him ''no, daddy, stop'', a court has heard.

More than 70 sex acts against a young girl, including two rapes, have landed a Dunedin man in prison for a decade.

A woman who blackmailed her lover for more than $180,000 has been released on parole, despite two incidents of misconduct behind bars in the last six months.

With two squirts of hand-sanitiser into a drink bottle, a salesman almost killed his Dunedin colleague in what he called a "prank" gone wrong.

A 20-year-old North Otago man has been granted name suppression after being charged with the armed robbery of the Kakanui Dairy.

As Garry William Bingle lay in his kitchen in a drug-induced stupor, his two toddlers played by the red-hot element he had used to spot cannabis.

A Dunedin man will spend at least seven years in a mental-health facility after stabbing a police officer in the face with scissors.

A man who killed his ex-partner's new lover, then was released and attacked his new girlfriend, has once again been granted parole.