The haul netted them more than $150,000 worth of appliances.
The pair, along with up to four co-offenders, were part of a youth gang they called ”H-town 07″.
In July 2021, they not only drove a stolen car through the front doors of Heathcotes, but also hit two city Liquorland stores in Te Rapa and Dinsdale, causing more than $35,000 in damage and thefts.
Edmonds, who was using methamphetamine at the time, was armed with a claw hammer during the brazen daylight robbery of the Te Rapa store on July 21.
While his four co-offenders rummaged for booze, cigarettes and cash, he got the sole worker to tell him where the remaining cigarettes were, ordering the person not to look at them and not to call police until five minutes after they left.
The group took more than $22,000 worth of tobacco items, 43 bottles of alcohol worth $3856, more than $8000 in cash and also broke 28 bottles of alcohol.
Edmonds and others then targeted the Red Berry supermarket in Cambridge three days later, again driving a stolen vehicle through its entrance at 3.43am, taking cash and tobacco products worth $1000.
Edmonds’ blood would later be found on the driver’s door of the stolen Ford Ranger.
On July 31, 2021, the gang, wearing masks, and Edmonds, carrying a large knife, went into Liquorland Dinsdale about 7.30pm, pushing the female staff member away from the counter and making off with cash, alcohol and cigarettes.
On August 1 last year, while on remand in Hawke’s Bay Prison’s youth unit, a group became upset when officers told inmates in Wing 2 they would not be allowed outside for exercise until they had cleaned graffiti off the walls.
Edmonds was in Wing 1, and after the Wing 2 group broke out of their area, they freed others on to the roof and remained there for 24 hours, throwing various objects at prison staff, with one object even striking a 71-year-old Corrections officer in the back of the neck.
During Monday’s sentencing, Judge Philip Crayton said their spree of car thefts and armed robberies was “life-changing” for those they targeted.
“It’s an effect that is reported almost daily, unfortunately, in our newspapers.
“Hard-working people who are put in fear of their lives by this type of offending; for easy gain, high-value gain with little thought to the victim.”
Both victims of the aggravated robberies had since given up their jobs due to fears for their safety.
“Both of those people reflect what every day is being witnessed now in New Zealand, which is people who are trying to earn a living being the subject of significant, deliberate and very targeted offending of our retail stores.”
The judge acknowledged both defendants had difficult upbringings.
Judge Crayton noted it was “sad” Edmonds’ father was a drug abuser who taught his son how to steal as a youngster. However, the father had since turned his life around, but his son was now on the wrong path.
At the time, Edmonds’ co-offenders were his main support in life.
He and Williams were both at high risk of reoffending, although Williams was recently diagnosed with ADHD and was undergoing voluntary treatment in jail.
Edmonds instead believed there was nothing wrong with him and that all he needed to do was get a job.
Judge Crayton told him he would have to do some work on himself before the Parole Board would consider releasing him from prison.
The judge noted Edmonds’ comments in his probation report in which he said he felt “pretty bad” and that he wasn’t thinking of what the victims would be going through, along with how he was mad at himself “for doing all that dumb s***”.
Edmonds’ counsel, Gavin Boot, submitted his client was more of a follower of the offending. However, Judge Crayton noted Edmonds was “up front and centre” with the aggravated robberies.
“There’s not a lot of following going on at that point,” he said, to which Boot agreed.
After applying credit for youth, his Section 27 cultural report and early guilty pleas, Judge Crayton jailed Edmonds for five years.
However, the teenager becomes automatically eligible for parole because he has already served a third of his sentence on remand.
On multiple charges of unlawful conversion of a motor vehicle and two of aggravated robbery, Williams was jailed for three years and two months.
Belinda Feek has been a reporter for 19 years, and at the Herald for eight years, joining the Open Justice team in 2022.
