Seven years' jail for notorious HB crim | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Notorious Hawke's Bay criminal John Wharemako Gillies, was today sent back to prison for another seven years' jail for drugs offences and more attacks on police.

At his sentencing today the Crown was seeking the penalty for offences committed by Gillies while on parole on May 29 last year.

Gillies, 34, once sentenced to 12 years in jail for stabbing a police officer with a screwdriver, was appearing on charges of possessing cocaine and methamphetamine for supply, and two assaults on police.

It was revealed in court today by Crown prosecutor Russell Collins that just yesterday Gillies was officially recalled from parole to serve the remainder of previous sentences, which expire in October 2008.

With defence counsel Tony Snell today seeking a penalty as low as five years, today's sentence means that by the time Gillies is due for release he will have spent more than 17 of the last 20 years in prison.

He had pleaded not guilty to the drugs charges and the aggravated assault of an officer relating to a State Highway 2 car chase and his arrest at the southern end of the Waipawa bridge late on the morning of May 29 last year, but was found guilty at a trial last month.

He had, however, admitted a lesser form of assault on an officer arising out of the same incidents.

The judge called the aggravated assault, which involved the grabbing of a police officers genitals a "despicable act".

When police caught Gillies, after a 13km car chase invloving speeds of about 145kmh between Hastings and Waipawa, they found 10.5g of cocaine, 1.3g of crystal methamphetamine and cash totaling $21,040 in the car.

Gillies was in July 2003 paroled after serving almost 10 years of a 12-year sentence for his attack on Gisborne police officer Nigel Hendrikse - a jail term during which he was awarded a five-figure sum in compensation for physical abuse by prison officers.

Early in 2004 he was sentenced to four months' jail for assault, and had been out less than a month when the chase happened.