Home detention - again - for man whose theft of 4000 litres of petrol the latest crime in 40 years of offending
Tuesday, 7 July 2026
About to serve a spell of home detention for $60,000 of fraud, career criminal Tony Dexter Valentine was helping fill oil drums with thousands of litres of stolen premium petrol.
It tacked one more crime onto Valentine’s long rap sheet, which spans almost four decades and amounts to more than 200 convictions, plenty of it dishonesty offending.
Christchurch District Court Judge Raoul Neave on Friday sentenced the 53-year-old to six months’ home detention.
He received the same length of sentence in August last year for conning the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) out of tens of thousands of dollars.
But just weeks earlier, Valentine – usually acting with an associate – used a fuel card stolen from a bus in Springston to pay for huge amounts of premium petrol, according to the latest police summary of facts.
They targeted gas stations in Cashmere, Bishopdale and Tai Tapu late at night or in the very early morning, filling plastic containers, oil drums and a large plastic tank.
They obtained upwards of 4000 litres of petrol valued at more than $10,000 on eight occasions between July 12 and July 17 last year.
Judge Raoul Neave said it was “difficult to escape the conclusion” Valentine was selling the fuel for personal gain, which introduced an element of “commerciality”.
The judge increased Valentine’s sentence for his lengthy criminal history, and ordered he pay $4700 in reparations alongside the home detention sentence.
In October 2020, Valentine forged a letter from ACC to inform MSD he was no longer receiving weekly payments for an injury. He then applied for a benefit.
He was overpaid nearly $60,000 under false pretences over the next three years and twice lied about the payments so they continued.
At his eventual sentencing in August 2025, Judge Noel Walsh told Valentine he had been to prison more than 23 times and it was time to make some changes.
In 2016, Valentine told Stuff he was a “gentle giant” and denied involvement in a spike in boy racer antics at the time.