Meth user pulled out rifle in car argument

A 22-year-old woman went on what a judge called a ‘‘mini-rampage’’ after being introduced to methamphetamine.

The offending, which spread across the North and South islands, came to a sudden end when Taylor Ellen Newbery showed she had a sawn-off rifle during a civil dispute over ownership of car.

Newbery was immediately arrested after the incident in Heathcote, Christchurch, on March 19.

Defence counsel Allister Davis said she had been given methamphetamine by a man and thought it meant he cared for her. She was told because she was a first offender she would only get a ‘‘slap on the hand’’ if she was caught.

As she told police when the crime spree came to an end: ‘‘I just took dumb decisions.’’

Davis told Judge Michael Crosbie at Newbery’s Christchurch District Court sentencing on Thursday: ‘‘That probably sums it all up.’’

Newbery pleaded guilty to the charges of unlawful possession of ammunition and a pistol – a cutdown semi-automatic .22 rifle – as well as a series of petrol and LPG drive-off thefts, shoplifting, stealing money online from an expartner’s bank account, possession of a pipe for smoking methamphetamine, and causing loss by deception.

She confronted five people who had arrived to take possession of a car parked on the roadside in Station Rd, Heathcote.

She unzipped a handbag she was carrying and showed it to the group so they could see it contained a cut-down semi-automatic .22 rifle. The rifle was loaded with a magazine containing six live rounds.

The judge imposed six months of home detention in Wellington, but said that could be reviewed after three months, and ordered her to pay more than $1500 back to her victims.