A Raglan couple built an extra room onto their house, installed a solid fuel heater, and fitted metal sheeting without getting council building consent because they identify as “sovereign citizens”.

A lengthy, and expensive, prosecution launched by the Waikato District Council has finally come to an end, resulting in Bradley and Michelle O’Donnell being fined $20,000 in the Hamilton District Court.

The various hearings have largely been conducted without input from the O’Donnells who, in a document sent to the council, claimed a building consent had been granted by a person called “Piripi” of the Hapu Tangata Whenua Suveran Authority of Te Ika a Maui on February 16, 2021.

The couple were each due to be sentenced on a charge of carrying out building works without consent in December after Judge Philip Crayton found them guilty at a judge-alone trial last year. They did not show up.

At trial, the council submitted various documents including comparison drone photos taken on September 30, 2021, and again on September 6, 2022.

Staff who visited the property, on Te Hutewai Rd, also gave evidence about what they saw on that first visit.

The staffer met a woman named Michelle and noticed a building on wooden blocks and told her he didn’t believe they had building or land use consents.

A week later, Michelle texted the staff member to say she had dropped off Māori sovereign authority with the document signed by ‘Piripi’.

At a site visit in September 2021, staff from the building inspection team noticed a “re-sited dwelling among other building works, land clearance with some levelling, and what can properly be described as building works in progress”.

The newer photos, taken a year later, showed a concrete slab had been laid, a heater or wood burner with a flue coming through the roof — which a witness would later confirm to be a solid fuel heater.

Metal sheeting had also been laid to act as subfloor baseboards and as wall cladding for weather tightness.

Despite repeated attempts to contact the couple in the subsequent months, they eventually replied with a letter on March 2023, telling council staff they would attend a meeting if they were paid.

The letter was entitled “Notice to one is notice to all”.

“It contains purported assertions of legal authority, which are somewhat spurious, and an invitation to pay a substantial amount of money to them to attend an interview,” Judge Crayton said in his judgment of October last year.

December’s sentencing was adjourned as the couple, again, failed to turn up and a new date was set down for last week.

‘Councils are seeing surges in sovereignty cases’

Council prosecutor Charlie Wilkinson told Judge Crayton councils were “seeing a surge” of sovereign citizenship arguments which Judge Crayton said was a “convenient” stance to take.

“[The O’Donnells] appear to be conveniently allying themselves to whichever form of sovereignty argument, almost as a nice way to abrogate any responsibility for what is effectively just being part of community and society,” the judge said.

The downside, Wilkinson responded, was that the financial impact of prosecutions fell on ratepayers.

“The unfortunate consequence of that is that it’s the ratepayers who are funding the resources and costs to take these prosecutions to trial,” she said.

“There is that resurgence across the country of that sovereign citizenship movement and I will argue that is entirely aggravating to both the offenders and the offending, the non-cooperation with the court process and indeed the council process itself.”

Councils did not pursue many Building Act prosecutions but the ones they did were important, she said.

“Building Act prosecutions do set the standards for buildings to ensure that people who use those buildings can do so safely without endangering their health.

“The Act is here for a reason.

“Here, the defendants deliberately chose this pathway of non-compliance and making that deliberate decision repeatedly not to co-operate with the court or the council ... they instead ...decided that the laws of New Zealand don’t apply to them.”

She pushed for a fine of $20,000, which she hoped would serve as a deterrent to others who may consider carrying out similar offending in the future, and asked that 90% of that be paid to the council.

‘Plain flouting of the law’

In issuing his sentence, Judge Crayton said the illegal works weren’t a mere transgression.

“This is from start to finish unconsented work.”

He noted the couple’s notice they’d filed the day before sentencing, “A notice within terms and provision of Maori incorporation constitution regulations 1995, 2000, 2005″.

“Aside from the heading, the rest of the notice makes little to no sense.

“It is interesting, within the body, that apparently this judicial officer is a ‘self-proclaimed administrative agent’.

“That perhaps provides some flavour to the nature and worth of the document which has been filed.

“It has no value in law, it has no status before this court.”

He described the prosecution as “prolonged” as the defendants repeatedly ignored the council’s request to get building consent.

“This was not ignorance. This was a plain flouting of the law and regulations.”

As for them identifying as sovereign citizens, that meant they sought to abrogate themselves from societal expenses, including tax.

“I postulate whether the O’Donnells go to hospital when they are ill. That is one prime example of why we have as a society obligations which go with entitlements.”

Judge Crayton said there was potential for great risk of harm to people if the property was sold with unconsented work done to it.

He ordered the couple to pay a $20,000 fine with 90% of that to be paid to the council.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.