Remand for abductor
PA Tauranga I ia A man who pleaded guilty i before Mr D. B. Wilson, 1 i S.M., in the Magistrates,* Court at Tauranga yester-j’ day to an abduction charge |j was remanded to February 27 for sentence and released . on bail of $4OOO. withj aL similar surety. Morris John Hodder . admitted unlawfully taking : " away Dean John Hodder at Auckland on January 6. [' Detective Sergeant J. P.' ! Bermingham tola the Court J that after 10 years of mar- ’ riage the defendant and his:' wife separated in 1976. The custody of their son had < varied between the two. • < A divorce was made final!l in 1977 and the wife was I granted custody of the son.'i a
Provision for access was allowed to the defendant. The defendant moved to Australia and did not exercise his right of access until November. 1978, when he asked that his son join him in Australia for a holiday. His former wife, who had remarried, granted him access from December 31, 1978, to January 3, 1979, Sergeant Bermingham said. The defendant had collected his son and agreed to stay in Tauranga during the period. He said that he would advise his former wife where they would stay. The boy was not returned on January 3. and police inquiries began. Neither ! father nor son could be found in New Zealand, but subsequent inquiries traced 4
5 the defendant to his Queensland home. His son was also j there. J Sergeant Bermingham said ;' that police inquiries had .shown that the defendant [Heft New Zealand on January i 6 with his son and a . woman. The defendant was ; arrested in Queensland and 1 extradited to New Zealand ' but he maintained that he ’ had done nothing wrong because it was his own son he ■ had taken. 5 The defendant had said -I that he had taken the boy -on the spur of the moment, r but police inquiries disclosed I that he had bought the tii’cket for his son in Novem--iber. Sergeant Bermingham risaid, because his son panted ji to go with him; if he had mot the defendant would i'have cashed in the ticket.
Remand for abductor
Press, 20 February 1979, Page 6
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