Scott William Larsen prefers to go by the name "scott-william of the House of Larsen" and is a "governor" of self-proclaimed sovereign, Ariki Nui o Tuhoe Government.
His belief is that as a "living man", he and his supporters are not subject to the laws of New Zealand or Acts of the Crown.
Larsen came to the attention of police in Featherston last April, when an officer saw that his driver's licence had expired on January 22, 2018.
He was served with a road safety directive that immediately banned him from driving until he updated his driver's licence.
But on December 30 last year, two police constables pulled a vehicle over and saw that its warrant of fitness had expired.
The driver gave his name as "scott-william [of] the House of Larsen".
One of the police officers searched the owner of the vehicle registration on his mobile device, clicked on the photograph to enlarge it and showed it to the driver who confirmed that it was him, Scott William Larsen.
After being told he was a forbidden driver, Larsen said he was going to leave.
One of the officers reached for the car keys and Larsen wound the window up on her arm, leaving a bruise, court documents show.
Eventually, Larsen wound the window down and the police officers grabbed the keys.
He was charged with driving while forbidden and assaulting a police constable.
After a judge-alone trial at Masterton District Court, where Larsen didn't show up, he was convicted on both charges.
He was sentenced on the assault charge to come up for sentence if called upon within nine months and disqualified from driving for six months.
Larsen then appealed the convictions and sentence to the High Court on the grounds of fraud and perjury.
He told the High Court judge that he was not to be referred to as Mr Larsen because that was a "corporate name" and reference to an "artificial entity created through the use of artificial construct by all Crown representatives and forcefully against the will of the living man: scott-william".
Because he does not recognise himself as Mr Larsen, he says that the "living scott-william" was never invited to any court, nor addressed by any police, and therefore the proceedings should be null and void.
He says his mother gave him the name "scott-william" and, although his family name is Larsen, it is not his name but a name that goes back thousands of years.
Therefore, he claimed he would be committing perjury to accept the name as his.
Justice Helen Cull, however, disagreed.
"I am unable to accept Mr Larsen's submission," she wrote in her final decision.
"Mr Scott William Larsen is, at law, 'the living scott-william'. They are one and the same."
Larsen also claimed there had been corruption, breach of the code of conduct to act in good faith, and breach of the fundamentals of contract.
He claimed that the actions by the police and the court had been made with intent "to deceive living man: scott-william to gain ownership of him using Fraud, Force, in a world of Commerce and Contract".
But again, Justice Cull wasn't buying into it: "It is not fraudulent to refer to Mr Larsen by the name on his birth certificate."
He further argued that as "Governors of the Ariki Nui o Tuhoe Government", he and his supporters, are not subject to the laws of New Zealand or Acts of the Crown.
"Any protest to the Court's jurisdiction on the basis of an assertion of Māori sovereignty is without merit," Justice Cull said.
"Similar challenges to jurisdiction and sovereignty have been made previously and the higher courts have repeatedly rejected them.
"I therefore find there has been no miscarriage of justice."
Larsen's conviction appeal was dismissed but the judge did, however, uphold his sentence appeal in part, quashing his six-month disqualification from driving, concluding it had been made in error.
But she did stress: "If Mr Larsen wishes to drive a motor vehicle, he must first obtain an appropriate driver's licence, as the law requires."
