Ex-sports star jailed for 9 years

A former top Hawke's Bay sportsman's fall from grace into the seedy world of drug use was cemented yesterday when he was sentenced to nine years' jail for two gunpoint hold-ups in Napier.
Former New Zealand kickboxing champion Shannon Eric Wilson, 32, and Ricky Jason Gibbins, 31, who has a prison record for knifepoint robberies of a Tauranga pharmacy in 1996 and a Napier service station the following year, will each serve a minimum non-parole term of five years. The sentences were imposed by Justice Robert Dobson in the High Court in Napier.
In May the two, both fathers with young children, were found guilty despite denying being involved in a botched robbery at a Chubb Security branch in Onekawa about dawn on October 16, 2007, and a late-afternoon heist at the Taradale branch of Westpac bank two days later.
For Wilson, who had recently bought his first home and was making his way up the ranks as a certificated scaffolder, it completed a double-hit for he is currently serving four years' jail for methamphetamine dealing in April last year.
Eligible to be considered for parole from that sentence later this year, Justice Dobson yesterday backed Crown prosecutor Russell Collins' call for the methamphetamine and robbery sentences to be cumulative.
The judge considered Wilson the ``ringleader'', saying he had organised other younger associates to steal vehicles to use in the crimes, and to observe staff patterns at the security company to establish the best time to strike.
When the robbery failed because the female staff arriving at the Austin St premises just before 6am would not open a door and safe, the robbers armed with a pistol and a hammer fled with the women's handbags.
Parking a stolen getaway car in a lane behind the bank 2 1/2 days later, Wilson sent Gibbins and another man in to point a gun at staff while cash was pushed into bags. More than a dozen customers were forced to the floor, before the raiders fled with about $12,000 and escaped in the car.
Defence counsel Matthew Phelps said Wilson's cannabis use started ``at the very young age of eight'', but through his sporting success and employment he was becoming a successful man.
``However, in the latter part of 2007 he obviously experienced an almighty fall from grace,'' he said.
Saying Wilson had now expressed his remorse and should be given the opportunity of rehabilitating, Mr Phelps argued against the methamphetamine and robbery sentence being cumulative, and asked the judge to use six years as a ``starting point'' for calculating the sentence.
Justice Dobson rejected the notion of remorse, which Mr Collins, seeking a starting point of 10-12 years, said was clearly absent in the decisions to deny the charges and force victims to be re-traumatised by having to give evidence in court.
Recognising Gibbins' robbery history, counsel Scott Jefferson suggested a starting point of about 10 years for his client, asking the judge to take into account support which pictured Gibbins as a good father, and a man with a ``good work ethic'' who would ``go out of his way to help others''.
Two co-offenders sent to prison for their roles gave evidence, with immunity from prosecution for the security company hold-up.