AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd has lost his appeal against a string of recent convictions in New Zealand.
The musician had been ordered in June to serve a sentence of eight months home detention along with six months of post-release conditions and payment of $NZ120,000 (Dh290,994) reparation after pleading guilty to charges of threatening to kill and possession of methamphetamine and cannabis.
However, his appeal, which argued that the sentence “was manifestly excessive”, was rejected by New Zealand’s high court.
In a judgement released on Tuesday, Justice Raynor Asher dismissed the appeal and said he had to decide whether the consequences of a conviction were out of all proportion to the gravity of the offence: “In my view they are not.”
Rudd has a strained relationship with the other members of AC/DC. He played on their most recent album, although the band’s guitarist Angus Young has said he was unreliable and that his behaviour had been “strange”. The band decided to tour the record without him, although Rudd still maintains that he is a member of the group. In an interview with Rolling Stone in August, he said: “Me and everyone else says that, but that’s not what Angus says. I don’t want to upset Angus by saying the wrong thing. Me and Angus kicked serious ass, and he knows if I was there it would be better. I know he knows that, because I’ve proven it before. Just give me five minutes in a room with him and I’ll get my job back. I promise ya [sic].”
Justice Asher commented on the band’s situation, referring to Rudd’s potential loss of income from the sentence. “First, the band would have to want him to play with them. Second, the convictions would have to operate as a barrier to him travelling with them on tour. Neither are certain. It is far from clear that at the time when the offending took place there was any place in the band available to Mr Rudd, given his drug addiction and state of mind.”
