A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A man robbed a service station and committed a raft of other offences last year including one in which he threatened to “wipe out Lytton High School” after he stopped taking prescribed medication.
Anthony James Robin’s longstanding, serious mental health issues were taken into account when he was sentenced in Gisborne District Court by Judge Warren Cathcart, who imposed one year, nine months imprisonment.
Robin, 38, had already served the time on remand in custody so would be released immediately subject to six-months release conditions.
The robbery at Gisborne’s Mobile Portside service station, happened at about 6am on April 27 last year and gave rise to three Crown-scheduled charges — aggravated robbery, theft and wilful damage.
Angry when the attendant refused to give him free food and locked him out of the shop, Robin bashed his way inside using his feet, elbows, a forecourt rubbish bin and a long stick.
He swung the stick aggressively at shelves, sending stock flying, brandished it at the attendant and demanded cigarettes.
As the attendant backed away into an office to activate fog cannons, Robin went behind the counter and tried to break into a charity box. He ate about $86 of food before police arrived and arrested him.
Robin said he had been hungry.
His separate offences resulted in police- level charges of intentional damage, assault, dangerous driving, failing to stop, threatening to kill, disturbing use of a telephone, assault on a police officer and assault in a family relationship.
The assault was on April 23 last year when Robin was drinking alcohol with others at a house.
Unprovoked, he grabbed a man and pushed him down on to concrete, then punched him numerous times in the head before someone intervened.
The victim suffered deep bruising to his face and arm, and concussion.
On the morning of April 25 last year, Robin drove through the Lytton Road roundabout on the wrong side and initially refused to stop for police who saw him.
He knew police were chasing him but was having a mental health episode and hadn’t taken his medication, he said.
On April 26 last year, he went into the community mental health centre in Peel Street and said to the receptionist, “what should I smash first?”. He threw a vase off the counter into a computer monitor, damaging both.
Police took him away but he resisted getting out of the patrol car, spat at an officer, kicked the man’s forearm and broke his watch strap.
Robin was again in police custody on May 3 and 4 when he urinated and defecated in two cells, then used his faeces to write on the walls.
At about 8pm on July 21, he made three 111 calls in which he threatened to do a bank robbery, said he was going to breach bail and “kill all these crackheads in school time”.
He threatened to go on a “killing spree” and said, “if any one of these gangsters come close to my property” he would “kill every one of them” and that he would “wipe out Lytton High School”.
He pleaded to be sent back to jail and told the call centre operator he would kill her.
On November 2, he hit a woman in the nose during an argument about a lawn mower. She had to leave her baby in the house when she ran to a nearby property for help. Her neighbour went back and got the child.
The court was told Robin stopped taking his medication last March, which caused his illness to flare. It was exacerbated by his drug and alcohol use. His condition settled when he resumed his medication in prison. Subsequent mental health assessments found he was fit to plead to the charges against him.
Crown prosecutor Lara Marshall told the court this latest spate of offending, like much of Robin’s criminal history, aligned with him stopping his medication.
However, recent reports showed he had some insight into the importance of complying with his medication schedule in order to avoid further reoffending and there seemed to be appropriate community support in place for him upon his release, Ms Marshall said.
The Crown agreed with counsel Alistair Clarke there should be significant sentence discount for Robin’s mental health issues, which were directly causative of the offending.
The judge adopted a four-year starting point both counsel submitted was appropriate, then uplifted it by eight months for the other offending and a further month for offending on bail.
He gave Robin full guilty plea discount of 25 percent (14 months) and 16 months discount for his background and health factors, and two months for remorse.
Robin had been in custody for 319 days so the appropriate outcome was time served, the judge said.
The release conditions imposed would be sufficient to ensure Robin continued to comply with his medication regime, the judge said.