Blackmailer Imprisoned

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 46

Blackmailer Imprisoned

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, Nov. 8.

Publicity given to the blackmail aspect of homosexuality law reform could have prompted the offence of a 25-year-old man who appeared in the Magistrate’s Court at Dunedin today for sentence on a blackmail charge, said Mr J. D. Murray, S.M.

The accused, Barry Thomas Jack, had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening to make a charge of sexual misconduct against a man on October 31 with intent to extort money.

Jack told the Magistrate that he did not intend to take the money. “I just wanted to put a good scare into him, hoping that he would never do it again,” he said. The Magistrate said blackmail was one of the “lowest and cruellest” of crimes. A tape-recording of the last of the telephone calls made by Jack to the complainant gave no indication that Jack wanted only to scare him. The Magistrate sentenced Jack to imprisonment for two years and a half. On a further charge of obtaing credit by fraud, by incurring a debt of $4.63 with the Post Office between June 26 and July 5, Jack pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three months imprisonment, concurrent with the head sentence.

Detective Senior-Sergeant D. W. Warner said that nine toll calls, costing $4.63, were made by Jack from a number of call boxes in Dunedin, and charged to two subscribers, neither of whom knew him.