Former Pike River Mine worker’s appeal dismissed

A man employed at the Pike River Mine when 29 men were killed in a series of explosions, will not have his sentence for burglary reduced.

Ronald David Riddell pleaded guilty to seven charges of burglary, one of theft under $500, failure to stop for police flashing lights and possession of a cannabis pipe.

He later appealed to the High Court to have his ‘‘manifestly excessive’’ sentence of two years and three months’ jail quashed, but in a decision released publicly yesterday, the appeal was dismissed.

Riddell had broken into several rural farm properties to steal fuel and other property, worth $26,000, over several days in January 2017.

Through his counsel’s submissions, Riddell referred to being an employee at the Pike River Mine on the West Coast at the time of the November 2010 disaster and of going through a difficult divorce shortly after as personal mitigating factors.

‘‘These significant life events may go some way towards explaining why a 33-year-old man with no previous convictions found himself before the court in 2012 on a total of seven criminal convictions,’’ Sunny Teki-Clark said.

In dismissing the appeal, High Court Justice Gerald Nation said he did not consider there were any personal mitigating factors the district court judge failed to take into account.