SENTENCED: Daniel Henley is serving 6 years 3 months for two knife-point robberies.
SENTENCED: Daniel Henley is serving 6 years 3 months for two knife-point robberies.
A man who took a boy less than half his age with him to commit two knifepoint robberies in Hastings is now serving terms totalling six years and three months in jail after an appearance in Napier District Court yesterday.
Daniel Raumano Hanley, who was in November sentenced to threeyears and nine months' imprisonment for the Sunday morning robbery of the Karamu Rd Dairy on August 28, was sentenced yesterday for a robbery nine days earlier of cigarette and tobacco merchant Discount Specialist, on the corner of Eastbourne and Charles streets, from where the pair fled in a victim's vehicle.
Hanley, aged 33 at the time of the robberies, when the boy was 15, had pleaded guilty to both robbery charges as well as one of unlawfully taking the vehicle, although initially pleading not guilty and selecting a trial on the charge relating to the earlier of the two raids.
In the August 19 robbery, the pair stopped near the shop about 9.15 on the Friday morning to cover their faces before entering the shop armed with a knife each to confront the proprietor was alone and stacking stock on a shelf.
Summarising, Judge Geoff Rea said Hanley had a knife with a blade of about 20cm which he brandished as he ordered the victim face-down onto the floor. As the boy also pointed a knife at the victim, Hanley began filling a bag with cigarettes and tobacco, and also took cash and the shopkeeper's keys.
The pair then left in the storekeeper's white Toyota Hilux which was abandoned soon afterwards near the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds.
Hanley was arrested minutes after the latter robbery, when he was traced back to a motel where he and his family were staying, unable to get stable employment and housing after having to move home to Hawke's Bay from Auckland, where he had a regular job and stable lifestyle with his wife and children.
Defence counsel said Hanley came from a situation where he was doing "very well" to one where he couldn't get work. He also had a minimal and mainly historic previous record which hadn't pointed to the possibility he would become involved in such serious offending. "He really doesn't have a history," Mr Stone said.
He said Hanley had written two long letters to the court and appreciated the traumatic impact on his victims and also the seriousness of incriminating the youngster.
