A Northland farmer jailed for the horrific abuse of his family will lose his farm after a High Court judge ruled it would be in no one's interests to keep it.
In November this year, Alan Titford was sentenced at the High Court in Whangarei to 24 years in jail for 39 offences including rape of his wife, repeated assaults on his wife and children, fraud and arson.
Allan Titford. Photo: RNZ
Justice Lang in the High Court in Auckland has ordered Titford be removed as the principal beneficiary of the trust that owns the Awanui farm and has allowed the sale of what has been described as a rundown property.
Titford opposed the move but Justice Lang said it will be a long time before the Northland man was able to farm again.
The $2.2 million from the sale of the farm is likely to be the subject of a matrimonial property hearing in the High Court.
Titford's wife Susan Cochrane has told Radio New Zealand on Friday she wants the farm sold so she can buy a house for her seven children.
The trustee looking after the farm had applied to the High Court for an order to allow the property to be sold and the money left after the mortgage is repaid put into in a trust for Titford, Ms Cochrane and their children.
Titford, an anti-Treaty of Waitangi activist and failed mayoral hopeful, came to prominence in the late 1980s when part of his land at Maunganui Bluff, north of Dargaville, was subject to a Treaty of Waitangi claim.
After a lengthy jury trial earlier this year, he was found guilty of assaulting his wife and seven children over a period of more than 20 years and burning down his farmhouse - a crime he blamed at the time on local Maori.
