Cigarette price protest ends in theft, assault convictions

A DEFENDANT was found guilty of three charges during two separate trials in the Queenstown District Court yesterday before Judge John BrandtsGiesen which stemmed from a protest in January over the price of cigarettes.

Melville Albert Whittlestone (65) had denied stealing the cigarettes, valued at $34.50, property of Night’n Day Shotover St, assaulting Le Nguyen and resisting Constable Ben Pereira, all on January 3.

Whittlestone, who represented himself, had failed to appear in the Queenstown District Court on numerous occasions and was warned by Judge Peter Hobbs in October if he failed to appear for his judgealone trial, it would go ahead without him.

He failed to appear for a callover on Monday and also failed to appear for the trial yesterday morning, so prosecuting Sergeant Ian Collin made the application under Section 122 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which was granted by Judge BrandtsGiesen.

The court heard Ms Nguyen was working on January 3 when Whittleston approached to purchase a packet of cigarettes, worth $34.50.

He demanded to know the ‘‘retail price’’, ultimately gave the shop assistant $15 and put the packet of cigarettes in a shopping bag.

When she reached over to pull them back out, he grabbed her left wrist firmly and pulled her arm twice, hurting her shoulder.

He left the store with the cigarettes having been verbally abusive to her.

Police were called and found Whittleston sitting on a park bench opposite the Night’n Day.

He was uncooperative, noncompliant and, at times, nonresponsive.

A third police officer was called to help take Whittleston to the ground so handcuffs could be placed on him after he resisted the two officers attending.

On the ground he continued to struggle for about a minute before fatiguing.

At the conclusion of the trial yesterday morning, Judge BrandtsGiesen found Whittleston guilty on all three charges, entered convictions and under another section of the Act issued a warrant for his arrest so he could be brought to court for sentencing.

However, yesterday afternoon Whittleston appeared in court and alleged he had not been notified the time of his hearing had changed.

While he had initially been summonsed to appear at 2.15pm yesterday, another summons was sent on November 20, advising him to attend court on Monday for the callover, during which the order of trials would be set.

He failed to appear because, he said, he did not get that summons.

Judge BrandtsGiesen chose to have the trial reheard, but came to the same conclusion.

Whittleston was offered the opportunity to give evidence on numerous occasions, but insisted he wanted more witnesses summonsed and questioned the legality of the CCTV footage presented to the court.

When Judge BrandtsGiesen directed Whittleston to enter the dock for sentencing he was unmoving and responded: ‘‘I haven’t done anything.’’

He was threatened with being held in contempt of court and after the judge explained he would be held in the cells ‘‘until the contempt is purged’’ after which a sentence of imprisonment could be considered, he eventually relented.

Whittleston was fined $200 and ordered to pay $130 court costs on all three of the charges and was also ordered to pay Ms Nguyen $300 emotional harm reparation by December 10.