McDonald's parole breach leads to Thor Kristiansen being tasered in 'chicken coop'

After breaching parole by having a dinner at McDonald’s, Thor Sven Kristiansen resisted being arrested and was chased by police until he was tasered in what has been described as a “chicken coop”, then he jumped into a trailer that collapsed underneath him.

Agreed court documents show the now 33-year-old had been released on parole on 24 February 2021 with a condition being he have no contact with Samantha Chatfield, which documents for an earlier series of crimes describe as being his “on and off again partner”.

But that same evening, the pair spent half an hour sharing a meal together in a booth at McDonald’s Manuka.

On 18 March, police stopped Kristiansen as he was driving in Chifley and told him he was under arrest for breaching his parole, but he ran from them on foot, so they gave chase.

He ran into the backyard of a home on Macfarland Crescent. He entered what the documents say was “a lean-to shed that appeared similar to a chicken coop being used as a garden storage shed”, where he began “frantically” looking around. The police thought he was looking for a weapon, so they tasered him.

But he got up off the ground, grabbed a police officer on their arm and was tasered again.

“The defendant then jumped onto a trailer in an attempt to jump a rear fence of the location, but the trailer gave way and he fell to the ground where police quickly apprehended him,” the documents say.

Kristiansen was also involved in an earlier police chase last year.

Agreed court documents for this incident show on 8 June 2020, police had gone to a home in Kambah to find Kristiansen. He left through a side door wearing only a bath towel around his waist and told them to “f-k off”.

He got into a VW Golf in the carport, reversed it through a closed Colorbond gate and into a police car that was parked in the driveway.

Police told him to get out of the car, but he refused and was highly aggressive. They used oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray on him and tasered him three times, but could only remove him from the car when they brought in a police canine.

A stolen handgun-style gel blaster was also found in the VW.

It was perhaps “bleeding obvious”, Magistrate Beth Campbell told the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday (22 December), but Kristiansen’s legal team had also conceded there was no option other than full-time imprisonment for him.

He had pleaded guilty to charges that included assaulting a frontline community service provider, resisting a Territory public official, unauthorised possession of firearms and driving while suspended.

Magistrate Campbell said a speeding offence “shows his continued disregard for the laws of the community”, while she described the resisting arrest incident in June 2020 as “probably one of the most significant examples of this type of offending that has come before me”.

“He has a lengthy criminal record,” she said.

His lawyer, Paul Edmonds from Canberra Criminal Lawyers, said during the June 2020 incident, police had smashed a window of the car to gain access, and it was unclear how long police were delayed when apprehending him, estimating the whole incident would have only lasted about five minutes.

Due to legal complexities that arose while sentencing Kristiansen, his final sentence couldn’t be handed down on Wednesday and was adjourned to next year.

But this adjournment didn’t bring any additional penalty as Magistrate Campbell told him, “you weren’t going to be released in the next few months in any event”.