Former Alliance candidate gets intensive supervision, not jail, for harassment

Former Alliance Party candidate Mary Jelena O'Neill, 62, was sentenced in Napier District Court to two years' intensive supervision — a community-based sentence with strict monitoring — for hiring a contractor to cut down neighbours' trees. Judge Russell Collins called it a "cynical act of harassment." Despite prior protection order breaches and online attacks dating to 2015, Collins declined custody, citing O'Neill's "complex needs" and "delusional" claims.