Police v Woods [2017] NZDC 16832 (1 August 2017)

Last Updated: 7 March 2018

EDITORIAL NOTE: CHANGES MADE TO THIS JUDGMENT APPEAR IN [SQUARE BRACKETS].

IN THE DISTRICT COURT AT NAPIER

CRI-2017-041-001182

[2017] NZDC 16832

NEW ZEALAND POLICE Prosecutor

v

[TEGAN WOODS] Defendant

Hearing:	1 August 2017
Appearances:	Senior Sergeant D Goodall for the Prosecutor L P Lafferty on behalf of N M Graham for the Defendant
Judgment:	1 August 2017

RULING OF JUDGE G A REA [ON S 106 APPLICATION]

[1] Ms [Woods], you are appearing for sentence having pleaded guilty to a charge that says that between 1 February 2016 and 7 March 2017, you directly accessed a computer system belonging to a named complainant through Google, Facebook and the Inland Revenue Department accounts with intent dishonestly and without claim of right to obtain a benefit from that private information.

[2] The facts make very serious reading it has to be said. You are a married woman. Your husband has a child from a previous relationship. The mother of that child, and the father, your husband, have been in ongoing Family Court proceedings. According to the summary that I have there is extensive Family Court history between

NEW ZEALAND POLICE v [TEGAN WOODS] [2017] NZDC 16832 [1 August 2017]

the parties. The relationship and the communication has completely broken down between the parties to the extent that communicating is done through lawyers and there is no contact between the parties during Court ordered drop off and pick up times in relation to the [child] who is the subject of the orders.

[3] According to the summary around February 2016 the complainant, the boy’s mother, started noticing unusual activity in her email and Facebook accounts. Her email accounts and Facebook were being accessed by an unknown person. Her Google email security preferences kept showing an unknown IP address was accessing her accounts from devices that she did not own. She noted emails were going missing and she was being locked out of her own accounts. This activity continually took place from February 2016 until March 2017.

[4] Having obtained the victims password for her Facebook account, you accessed that account. You then used the password to access online accounts owned by the victim. On what is described as countless occasions, between February 2016 through until March of 2017, you accessed the complainant’s email account, her Facebook account and perhaps worst of all, her Inland Revenue Department account without any knowledge or permission from the complainant.

[5] On her Facebook account you looked at private messages, at private photos, and you also took screen shots of those messages and photographs. You have used the same password to access her email account and you have looked at her private email communication. You guessed that she might use the same set up for her Inland Revenue account and you were able to dishonestly access that as well. You looked through her financial details, letters from the Inland Revenue pertaining to child support and earnings and you downloaded some of those documents and retained them on your own computer.

[6] The police summary reflects that your access over the period from February 2016 to March 2017 has been constant. It describes access as occurring at least a couple of times a week.

[7] In explanation you stated that you were accessing the accounts to see what the complainant was doing and to see if she was keeping to the conditions of the parenting order that was in place. You were doing this to find proof and evidence to be used in potential future Family Court hearings as you believe the complainant was untruthful in the information she had supplied to that Court.

[8] In explanation for accessing the IRD account, you stated you believed she was untruthful in declaring any income to IRD and that was influencing payments to Inland Revenue.

[9] You come before the Court without any previous convictions at all. I have available a victim impact statement from the complainant. Even putting to one side the fact that there is an ongoing war between your side of this battle and hers, the effect of you accessing her most private communications and accounts has been devastating, as it would be for anybody in her position.

[10] You quite clearly have used expertise that you have obtained, wherever you have obtained it from, to hack into her private communications and financial records and to help yourself both in what you saw and what you copied and you did it for a particular purpose.

[11] As I have said, hacking is the correct way to describe what you have done and it is a major factor in the outcome of this case as far as I am concerned. I have before me, from your lawyer, an application to discharge you without conviction. I cannot recall a less deserving application. In considering whether you should be discharged without conviction, I need to consider the gravity of the offending. I need to consider the consequences as far as you are concerned and then I need to see whether the consequences of a conviction would be totally disproportionate to the gravity of the offending.

[12] The gravity of this offending is moderate to serious. Obviously there are a lot more serious offences than this. But in the context of what was going on here, to hack into an opponent’s private emails, Facebook and other accounts is a moderately serious matter as far as the complainant and the community are concerned.

[13] As far as the affect on you is concerned. Much of your affidavit addresses the results of what you have actually done. The reaction of the Family Court when it found out what you had been up to, the affect that what you have done has had on your own family, but there is precious little in the affidavit to indicate that there is going to be any long term impact on any part of your life other than what you have bought on yourself here by what you have done. There is some suggestion that it may have some impact on employment or potential travel, but considering there is no employment in the interim and neither are there any travel plans, as far as I can see, that has little or no weight. But even if it did have any weight the consequences of what occurs to you as a result of this is most certainly not out of proportion to the seriousness of the offending.

[14] Your application under s 106 of the Sentencing Act 2002 is declined. I then need to consider what the appropriate penalty is for this offending. I thought that I would further adjourn this sentencing to enable a probation report to be obtained with a view to an electronically-monitored sentence. This is on the border-line of some form of custodial sentence, bearing in mind the length of time that you were involved in this and the extent of the involvement. However, I do bear in mind two things. You are a first offender. Secondly, you have pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity to this. There is also an additional factor that this may well just be very bad judgment on your part rather than malicious, although looking at the background of the circumstances here it is very hard indeed to rule out the fact that you were not operating maliciously.

[15] I am prepared to deal with the matter today by community work and supervision but that I consider is a lenient response to what you have done and is based only on the reasons that I have given around your lack of previous convictions and your early acceptance of guilt.

[16] On this charge you will be sentenced to 150 hours community work.

[17] You are also sentenced to nine months supervision, and that will be on any special conditions that the Probation Officer considers appropriate to assist in the prevention of reoffending.

G A Rea

District Court Judge