A judge has slammed the conduct of a man who twice punctured his elderly neighbour’s tyres over a noise dispute.
"I’ve heard some pretty miserable things in my time. This is up there," Judge John Macdonald said.
Paul Simon Dakers (34) appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday having pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional damage and one of causing loss by deception.
The offending started a week after he was released from prison.
Between August 30 and September 1, Dakers would enter the Mosgiel New World where he used a small blade to remove bar codes from cheap bottles of wine, placing them on more expensive casks.
He damaged nine wine bottles in total and was caught only on his third trip to the store, by which time he had ripped them off for $208.
Only days later, Dakers sneaked on to his 83-year-old neighbour’s property carrying a dart.
He used it to pierce one of the rear tyres of the retiree’s Toyota three times.
It was not until the victim had driven to town on September 5 that she noticed the deflated tyre and had it replaced.
"If that wasn’t bad enough, you then repeated the dose, so to speak," Judge Macdonald said.
A week later, Dakers again went next door, wielding the same sharp object. This time he stabbed a front and rear tyre; one four times, the other 14 times.
He admitted the acts when confronted by police and told them "he was sick of [the victim] going off at him about making too much noise with their music and lawnmower".
The judge was unimpressed by the explanation.
"His reasons for doing it were insubstantial, to say the least," he said.
"I’m unsure what you think about it now on reflection ... I’d like to think you have some regret for what you did."
Defence counsel Sophia Thorburn said her client accepted he had impulse-control issues and was "quite easily led".
He was addressing his issues through counselling and was not living near the victim any more.
Judge Macdonald said nothing short of imprisonment would do.
He sentenced the defendant to three weeks behind bars and ordered him to pay $598 reparation for the stolen wine and damaged tyres.