Man admits to threats, online abuse of Bridges
A Nelson man who sent abusive Facebook messages to Simon Bridges and threatened to shoot him has pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening to kill.
On the evening of May 15 the man sent Bridges, then the leader of the National Party, a number of messages on Facebook that were abusive and derogatory, giving his opinion that Bridges was ‘‘useless’’, the Nelson District Court heard.
The 26-year-old’s threats included shooting Bridges for the ‘‘good of all mankind’’.
When questioned, the man declined to make a formal comment to police but admitted sending the messages.
He said: ‘‘We are all just puppets working for this useless w ..... ’’ and ‘‘he does nothing to help this country at all’’.
The man said that as a taxpayer he was paying Bridges’ salary and the police ‘‘should be doing stuff to help out with real crime’’ and just leave him alone.
The man’s lawyer, Tim Spear, told the court on Monday that that he would be applying for a discharge without conviction.
The man was granted interim name suppression at an earlier court appearance.
Spear said alcohol was a factor in the offending and on Monday the man was also convicted on a charge of driving with excess breath alcohol, after he was stopped on Aranui Rd in Mapua on December 28 last year.
A breath alcohol test gave a result of 505 micrograms per litre of breath, and he told police he was driving to the shop to ‘‘get some beers’’.
The man will reappear in the Nelson District Court on August 3.