Nottingham loses both appeals

Dermot Nottingham has had his original sentence of 12 months home detention and 100 hours community work quashed and replaced with a new sentence.

The new sentence consists of 12 months home detention beginning from the latest appeal judgment and he has also been banned from using the internet for 18 months.

Nottingham - a character well known in the automotive industry - went to trial last year and was found guilty of five criminal harassment charges and two breaches of court suppression orders. He was sentenced in July 2018.

According to blog site YourNZ, Auckland's Crown Solicitor Brian Dickey said at Nottingham's sentencing the breaches were an "attack on the High Court".

Judge Jonathan Down also categorised the breaches as “blatant and contemptuous” and noted Nottingham showed no remorse.

During his appeal, Nottingham argued his convictions should be quashed because the blog site was based overseas.

“You cannot be a party to a crime that never occurred in an overseas jurisdiction,” he said.

Nottingham didn’t deny attacking and defaming people on the website, he just claimed he was immune from New Zealand law, said the blogsite. 

Judge Down said: “Even if the main parts of a crime are committed abroad, if you do something to further that crime, and you have done it in New Zealand, that crime, the whole thing can be prosecuted in New Zealand.”

The court of appeal judges, Justice John Wild, Justice Susan Thomas and Justice Matthew Muir, agreed, saying: “We identify no error in that direction”. 

New sentence

According to the blog site, in calculating the sentence the Court of Appeal judges arrived at 31 months’ imprisonment – about 30 per cent higher than Judge Down’s endpoint.

However, in re-sentencing Nottingham, the trio of judges was “obliged” to take into account the three and a half months of home detention he had already served.

“Allowing a seven-month discount in this respect again brings Mr Nottingham’s sentence to a level where the court is obliged to consider home detention.”

The court quashed the existing, part-served, sentence and imposed a new 12 months’ home detention term, plus the 100 hours of community work for the suppression breach.

Nottingham’s special conditions also remained, and include not using any electronic device capable of accessing the internet without prior approval from a probation officer.

"At least this and his bankruptcy (after he took nearly a year to file a statement of affairs he is due to be discharged from bankruptcy on 11 September 2022) should limit his capability to attack and harass people online should also restrict his habit of vexatious litigation," said George.

"Nottingham and his gang of online thugs remain unrepentant and a lot of defamatory attack material remains online, but that poses more risks to him than anyone. I think at least one legal proceeding continues against Nottingham for posts done years ago." 

Click here to read Pete George's full coverage of the judgement on the YourNZ website.