Former political candidate avoids jail despite years of harassing neighbours

Former Alliance Party candidate Mary Jelena O'Neill, 62, was sentenced in Napier District Court to two years of close supervision in the community — rather than jail — for hiring someone to cut down her neighbours' trees. Judge Russell Collins called it a "cynical act of harassment." Despite past breaches of legal protection orders and online attacks dating to 2015, he spared her custody, citing her "complex needs" and "delusional" claims.