Overturning of blackmail conviction sought
A DUNEDIN firefighter who blackmailed a woman using a topless selfie she sent him is fighting to have his conviction overturned.
Jayden Paul Haggerty (34) was sentenced in January to four months’ community detention and 12 months’ intensive supervision after being found guilty of the charge following a judgealone trial.
But the High Court at Christchurch heard yesterday that the sentence remained suspended until an appeal was decided.
Counsel Len Andersen QC said, when considering the evidence, the elements required to prove a charge of blackmail were not present.
Haggerty was found guilty on the basis that he had used threats of releasing an explicit photo the victim took while at work in a bid to have her reestablish communication on social media.
Mr Andersen accepted his client repeatedly threatened to publish the Xrated image but said it was not done to force the woman to act in any specific way.
‘‘This whole pattern shows somebody who’s very, very disturbed,’’ he said.
‘‘When you look at these texts, he’s all over the place.’’
The victim told the court at the trial last year that she met the former Dunedin Airport emergency services worker through her employment in 2020 and he convinced her he was single.
The exchange of explicit photos was his idea, she said.
When the victim discovered Haggerty was married with a third child on the way, she cut ties on some social media platforms and the defendant was trespassed from her workplace.
‘‘You shouldn’t have crossed me . . . I’ve got nothing to lose,’’ the defendant said in one message.
Mr Andersen said the idea Haggerty would blackmail the woman for the purpose of maintaining contact was flawed since they continued to communicate by text message.
The defendant expressed his frustration when the victim unfollowed him on Instagram but when she offered to add him again he declined, Mr Andersen stressed.
Later, Haggerty messaged: ‘‘You’ve called the police and blocked my number . . . tell me why I shouldn’t post these photos.’’
He then told the woman to add him on Snapchat ‘‘ASAP’’.
Mr Andersen called it a request rather than a demand.
It was an ‘‘afterthought’’ and not enough to amount to blackmail, he argued.
Crown prosecutor Pip Norman disagreed.
She said the pair’s relationship had primarily been conducted through the socialmedia apps, hence why Haggerty resented being cut off.
She urged Justice Cameron Mander not to read the messages alone but view them alongside crossexamination from the trial.
In the witness box Haggerty had repeatedly admitted the reason he made the threats was to reestablish the social media connection, Ms Norman said.
Justice Mander reserved his decision.
Haggerty did not dispute his convictions for assault in a family relationship, as well as exposing a young person to indecent material, which involved him posing as a teenager online to engage in lewd conversation with a 14yearold girl.