A 44-year-old man with more than 40 previous convictions for dishonesty has been sentenced to two years and three months in jail for his links to a plague of thefts from his neighbourhood in Hastings.
Reuben Joseph Cole, who waited more than six months before pleading guilty after being given a judge's sentence indication of what the penalty might be if he admitted one charge of burglary and 12 of receiving stolen property, was handed his penance as he appeared before Judge Geoff Rea in the Napier District Court yesterday. In setting the penalty, the Judge allowed discounts for the pleas, and a credit for what defence counsel Richard Stone said were "some difficulties" with electronically monitored bail before Cole was arrested and remanded in custody after failing to appear at the time initially set for the sentencing indication hearing in June.
Multiple charges of burglary followed Cole's arrest late on New Year's Day when he was apprehended with a stolen trailer and items which had been taken in a burglary.
A police search of his home in Conway St, Mayfair, then uncovered dozens of items taken mainly from sheds, gardens and patios of homes in neighbouring streets over several weeks dating back to the second week of November.
In April most of the burglary charges were withdrawn and replaced by the alternatives of receiving stolen property.
Judge Geoff Rea said property worth over $10,000 was involved, but no order for reparation was sought by police.
Cole's late-night arrest meant that the trailer, a mountain bike, a barbecue table, a hose reel, gas bottles, two bench seats and two canvas chairs, an outdoor umbrella, a gas firepit, and frozen food were quickly able to be returned to owners.
Other property recovered from Cole's home included lawnmowers, an aluminium-framed garden gazebo and garden ornaments.
Property had come from burglaries and thefts in Collinge, Eaton, Caroline, Warwick and Kennilworth roads, Barden St and Fitzroy Ave.
Judge Rea sentenced Cole to two years and three months on each burglary and receiving charges, and nine months for cultivating cannabis, a lesser-value receiving charge where the maximum available penalty was 12 months' jail, and for breaching bail. He ruled all sentences be served concurrently.