Woman drugs Tokoroa boss

A volunteer SPCA worker who drugged her boss after her affections were not reciprocated has been unsuccessful in getting her jail sentence reduced to home detention.

Janet Blower was a volunteer worker at the South Waikato branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

She became infatuated with her manager, for whom she developed what a judge termed ’’an unhealthy obsession’’.

Her obsession escalated to harassment and reached the point where she was not allowed to be present at the branch at the same time as the female manager.

This angered Blower, so she posted a number of derogatory comments on Facebook about the SPCA. She was asked to remove the posts and eventually did.

On August 21 last year, she snuck into the Tokoroa branch of SPCA through a back door

and put four lorazepam tablets in the manager’s coffee.

Later in the evening, the manager drove the SPCA vehicle home. The volunteer went with her on the 45-minute trip as she was going to take the vehicle back into Tokoroa after the manager got home.

Along the drive, the manager began to feel the effects of the lorazepam. She had double vision and had difficulty controlling the vehicle.

At one point, the vehicle left the road and ended up in a shallow ditch. When she got home, she went straight to bed. She still felt ill the next day so went to Taupo Hospital.

When police spoke to Blower she said she went to the SPCA branch with the intention of hurting the manager and she admitted putting the tablets in the coffee. When police searched her property they found eleven cannabis plants, 50 seeds and six cannabis cigarettes.

Blower pleaded guilty to stupefying a person and cultivating cannabis. In May Judge Chris Mcguire sentenced her to two years prison and said her offending ‘‘had all the hallmarks of something that was going to turn out disastrously for the victim and probably for other people too’’.

He considered the offending so dangerous that he was not prepared to sentence her to home detention.

The sentence weas reduced to 18 months on appeal.