So, it’s nearly Christmas. Most of the staff are away, and I’ve been looking at doing a redesign for our company website. In amongst all of that I was Googling for certain code snippets and the like, and found myself stuck in one of those chain reaction procrastination loops. I had come across a page in someones signature on a forum, and naturally stuck in the URL for stubbedtoe. While most of the information that came out of it I already knew about, one thing i hadn’t tried before was searching google for the full url to see what random sites had mentioned this blog.

Again, while most of the results were to be expected (Embedded Google Videos of Mr Bliss being a theif) one of them caught my eye above the rest.

I don’t quite know how I didn’t come across this at the start! Fantastic bit of journalism anyhow.

GUILTY PLEA: Hastings man Dawson Bliss, who poached a stag then filmed himself and two companions carrying it, has been ordered to pay reparation.

Turns out he was true to his word for once:

Video stag-hunter fined for poaching

A filmmaker who poached a stag then filmed himself and two companions carrying it has been ordered to pay reparation.

Dawson Bliss, 52, of Hastings, appeared in Hastings District Court yesterday to plead guilty to charges of hunting on private land without the owner’s authority and of filming on conservation land without a concession.

The charges relate to a clip in The Trophy Hunters video, featuring Bliss’s son Beaudene, 27, and Cameron Young, 28, shooting a 12-pointer stag on Teme Station in the Waihopai Valley, near Blenheim, on April 1 last year.

They took turns filming each other carrying the head back into department land. Daniel Le Brun, of Teme Station, said the stag was bred to release into a fenced safari park on the property so hunting customers could easily take home trophy heads. He believed it was worth $8000.

Bliss, who disputed the figure, returned the head to police for valuation.

Judge Geoff Rea fined Bliss $500 and ordered he pay court costs of $130. He also ordered reparation to Mr Le Brun of $1875 – one third of the animal’s estimated value.

Beaudene Bliss was convicted last week and ordered to pay his share of reparation. An arrest warrant has been issued for Young.

Taken from the Dominion Post.

I didn’t realise that my blog was still getting so many hits (Getting over 500 a day!), so I fixed all of the links so you can check out the pictures and video of Mr Bliss with out hunting around too hard to find them.

I was actually up in the Hawkes Bay where our man Dawson Bliss operates his shady businesses over the past couple of weeks, and happened to bring up the whole ordeal with one of the locals, who knew of him all too well, and said that Dawson has actually recently been in the news AGAIN. I tracked down the article:

Video shows stag killing
The Dominion Post | Saturday, 08 November 2008

A film-maker is to plead guilty to poaching after a landowner watching one of his movies realised the trophy stag being shot belonged to him and was on his land.

Dawson Bliss, 52, of Hastings, will appear on Tuesday in Hastings District Court, where he says he will plead guilty to charges of hunting on private land without the owner’s authority and of filming on conservation land without a concession.

Bliss, a professional hunting guide who has made numerous hunting movies sold throughout New Zealand and overseas, has labelled the charges “ridiculous”.

“I’ve pleaded guilty because I just can’t be bothered with the cost and the hassle.” He said he had “no idea” a concession was required to film on department land.

The charges relate to a clip in The Trophy Hunters video, featuring Bliss’ son Beaudene, 27, and Cameron Young, 28, shooting a 12-pointer stag on Teme Station in the Waihopai Valley, near Blenheim. On March 31, the three men flew by helicopter to conservation reserve land. The next morning they tramped out of the reserve on to the station and tracked the stag. It was filmed alive, then killed.

Police say the men dragged it to a concealed area where they skinned it, removed its head and threw the carcass in a river.

They took turns filming each other carrying the head back into department land. A helicopter collected them on April 2.

Bliss made a video with the footage and copies were sold on the Internet and at hunting and fishing shops.

Daniel Le Brun, of Teme Station, said the stag was bred to release into a fenced safari park on the property so hunting customers could easily take home trophy heads. It was worth $8000. Bliss disputes this figure.

Mr Le Brun said the hunters must have crossed a fence in order to get the stag. Bliss disputes this.

Charges were laid early this year after Mr Le Brun saw the video and realised the men were hunting on his property.

Bliss Jr, of Nelson, and Young, of Hastings, pleaded guilty in Blenheim District Court last month to hunting deer on private property without permission and filming wildlife on crown land for commercial gain without a licence.

The men were told to give the stag head to Hastings police so it could be valued.

HRM, this all sounds just a LITTLE BIT TO FAMILAR! Dawson Bliss thinking he can beat the system. I guess this time it’s his own video that would be prime evidence, so he can’t try and dispute that it’s faked, like he did with me! If only he had of pleaded guilty in our case to save me a lot of time and money as well!

Wanker.

Dawson Bliss - In the same clothes he was in when he stole our laptop

…because that makes you look like more of a cock.

It’s funny, it was almost a year ago that I said it was over, and nearly two years ago that Dawson Bliss actually stole our laptop, but the saga has only really ended, you see, Dawson thought he was better than me.

He’s not.

Several days after the court case in Greymouth, I received notice from Dawson that I had committed perjury, and that I should get legal advice and remove the video that I put on the internet that is spreading lies about him. Yes Dawson, it was me who was trying to mislead the court… Anyhow, he filed an appeal, which has only just recently been heard, and thrown out.

Funny that.

Dawson Bliss - Dressed to talk bullshit

“…IF IT WASN’T FOR YOU PESKY INTERNETZ!!!!11111one”

Well, it’s finally over. Dawson Bliss of Hastings, of Wildnewzealand Films (And here), Farmhouse Lodge, Helicopter Logging NZ and Hunting New Zealand was convicted today and fined $2000, and $1900 reparations for stealing our laptop.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to write up a massive post on what happened, but you can download the front page of the Greymouth Evening Star from last Friday here, which should fulfill most people’s desires for the time being!

It seems the international media has climbed onto the bandwagon a lot more than the first time as well, a search on Google returning almost 20,000 results! Everyone from CNN to random Polish Computer News websites seem to be interested!

When time permits I’ll fill in the blanks, but for the mean time I’ll leave everyone with my favourite quote from the Grey Star article:

Judge MacAskill said he believed Mr Graham was an honest, credible and reliable witness, while Bliss had tried to manipulate the proceedings by getting contrary evidence “in the back door”.

YAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! :D

Contrary to the impressions I may give off this blog, when it comes down to serious business, Judge MacAskill has got me down to a tee.

Thanks to all the Police that were involved in this, and everyone who helped me out along the way, couldn’t have happened without you, and you know who you are :)

Ok. I know I haven’t been updating this as often as I should, but there’s been very good reason for this. The Saturday after the viewing on Nightline, I got an email. In this email contained some very interesting information, and with that information and the power of the internet, I managed to find out everything about this guy. His full name, his home address, what he does for a living, his cell phone number, his partners name and cell phone number, one of his nephews name, I’ve got aerial photographs of his house, hell, I’ve even got photos of him and his brother when he was a kid, and would you believe it, a photo of him wearing the exact same clothes as he was wearing when he robbed us.

Why haven’t I said anything earlier? Well, I called the Police straight away, told them his name, and they said “How do you know about him?” – Apparently a Police officer was watching Nightline and recognised him. They also said that if I go to the press with all of the information I have, he’ll most likely get a lesser sentence, which of course we don’t want. So we have to play the waiting game…

Well. There have been some very, very interesting developments over the weekend. I’m currently not at work at the moment, but watch this space Friday.. One thing I will say, the recent bits and pieces that have been in the Herald, The Press, and their websites, and other places, saying that the police are closing in on someone in Christchurch, is not correct. I have no idea how they got that information. As I said, watch this space..

Oh man. Hahaha. The segment on Nightline was awesome, full props to whoever edited that because man, I stuffed up a shitload more. Fantastic. Will try and get a digital copy for download and post it up. I’m also contemplating uploading the security footage of me getting interviewed? Haha.

*edit*

Managed to get hold of a copy of nightline on DVD cheers to my mate Jeremy, have divx’d it and uploaded it!

Earlier today I got an email from a lovely lady at TV3. She asked if she could send a camera man to do an interview and get some shots of the shop. I said definitely! And 45 minutes later he was there. So, watch Nightline tonight, 10:30pm, TV3. I also got an email from radio live, you can download the interview here.

Today it’s on page 4 of section 1 of the Herald, and they’ve gone and said it’s a Toshiba laptop.. Far out, I would really like to know where they got that information from, because they sure as heck didn’t talk to anyone here. The online editors are great however, and fixed it all up for me within 5 minutes of an email, mint, you can read the online version of it here. Because of this I got a phone call from Radio Live, they want me to go on live just before 4:00pm today on the James Coleman show, so that should be interesting! Will hopefully get a recording of that to post up here.