While much of Auckland was hunkering down last year in anticipation of Cyclone Gabrielle, Dylan James Hendriks - a drug addict who fuelled his habit in part by theft and deceit - saw an opportunity.
The now-30-year-old embarked on a mini crime spree that culminated in tens of thousands of dollars worth of mindless destruction at a West Auckland housing development construction site, taking advantage of lax security caused by the city’s second consecutive major weather event in as many weeks.
Hendriks appeared in Auckland District Court last week for sentencing on those crimes and a slew of others, including the endangerment of an Air New Zealand flight a year earlier.
The burglary appeared to be a pre-meditated attack on a business that was “vulnerable as the result of a weather event”, Judge David Sharp said during the hearing, noting that under normal circumstances Hendriks might be eligible for a sentence of home detention. But in this case, he said, it wouldn’t be an appropriate outcome.
He instead ordered a sentence of 21 months’ incarceration, but with a caveat that he’d “gladly transfer” Hendriks from prison to a full-time residential drug rehabilitation facility if he could line up a spot.
“It’s either rehab or custody,” Judge Sharp explained. “Just too much has gone wrong.
“The only way I can see out of it for Mr Hendriks is if he does have residential rehabilitation.”
Hendriks could have faced up to 10 years imprisonment for the commercial property burglary, which occurred sometime between sunset on February 13 last year and sunrise the next day. Court documents outline how he targeted two large buildings encompassing 11 furnished but not yet occupied units on New Lynn’s Portage Rd.
The doors to each unit did not yet have locks installed, court documents note.
In unit one, the defendant climbed into a ceiling hatch in the master bedroom and pulled out pink wall insulation while searching through the ceiling cavity. In unit three, he pulled out heat pump cables from the living room wall and the light fitting in an upstairs bathroom - breaking a shelving unit as he again tried to climb into the ceiling cavity.
In unit seven, he pulled a toilet out from the wall, damaging the wall, and pulled off the toilet lid. In the next two units he stole a vanity and two bathroom lights - yanking one out hard enough that wires were left dangling from the damaged ceiling.
“While in lot 10 the defendant has taken the sink from the downstairs bathroom vanity and attempted to do the same in lot 11, but only moved the vanity,” court documents state.
“Furthermore, the defendant went to the kitchen in lot 11 and took the bin from one of the drawers. He also stole the hot water cylinder from the living room. He went upstairs and took the sink as well as moving the toilet and taking the shower head and pipe. The defendant moved onto the upstairs en-suite bathroom and stole the shower head and pipe.”
New Generation Group Ltd filed a $25,000 insurance claim as a result of the damage. While it would have been ideal for Hendriks to repay the company’s out-of-pocket expenses and reimburse the insurance company, it would be unrealistic to expect such a result given the defendant’s current situation, which included a balance of over $20,000 in unpaid fines and court costs, the judge noted during the sentencing.
Police searched Hendriks’ Blockhouse Bay home one month later, finding glass methamphetamine pipes in his bedroom and items that had gone missing in the property development burglary, as well as items connected to other crimes.
“He claimed that the multitude of different driver licences and other documents [found by police during the search] were legitimate and all the names on them were his ‘legal names’,” police noted. “He denied knowing about the other driver licences located in his bedroom that had another person’s details and photographs on them. When questioned about a blank driver licence without the photograph or text, he claimed it must have rubbed off in the washing machine.”
Just two days prior to the search warrant, Hendricks had been caught in the act while attempting to loot a vacant Kāinga Ora home on the same street where he lived. He had parked his white Audi A4 in the driveway and damaged the front door lock before going to the laundry room where the hot water cylinder was located.
But someone tipped off the property manager, who immediately travelled to the site.
“The manager yelled out to whoever was inside the house and the defendant came out from the laundry area and spoke with her,” court documents state. “The defendant told the manager that he had been authorised by Kāinga Ora Homes to remove anything he wanted to take from the house. The manager told the defendant that was incorrect, it was a private property and he should leave.
“The defendant drove off ... as the manager phoned the police.”
Investigators also linked Hendriks to a scam he had pulled off on the same week as the construction site burglary relating to a Toyota Aqua that had been left damaged on the side of the road in New Lynn following a hit-and-run.
While the owner of the car was waiting for an insurance company to organise a tow truck to collect the vehicle, Hendriks used an altered driver’s licence with a fake name to change ownership of the vehicle through Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. He then called a vehicle salvage company, claiming to be the owner and selling it for $800 to the tow truck driver who showed up for the company.
Among the other crimes he pleaded guilty to was stealing $3500 worth of tokens from a laundromat in March 2021, the assault of a property manager in Epsom in May 2021 and a single night in January 2022 in which he was caught pointing a high-powered green laser beam at both a commercial Air New Zealand flight and the police Eagle helicopter.
Both pilots had to shield their eyes to avoid being blinded, but the police helicopter was able to film the incident and trace the beam directly to Hendrik’s home. Police knocked on his door a short time later.
“The potential for you causing a catastrophe in both incidents was high,” the judge said.
Defence lawyer Charle Megala had sought intensive supervision for his client, arguing that the time he had already spent in jail awaiting sentencing had fulfilled the punitive aspect of the sentencing. Crown prosecutor Nastassia Pearce-Bernie opposed a non-custodial sentence.
While determining the sentence, Judge Sharp acknowledged that Hendriks had suffered some trauma in life that may well underlie his addiction issues. The judge didn’t go into specifics but encouraged Hendriks to swap out the prison term with rehab.
“Some things have happened to you that aren’t your fault, and you need to find a way to deal with those,” the judge said, adding that the coping mechanism can’t continue to be drugs and alcohol. “That [rehab] is the way out of the mess you’re in. That’s what you need to do, and I support that.”
The judge also voided Hendriks’ $20,245 in overdue fines and court fees, substituting them for a two-month sentence to run concurrently with the other sentences.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
Police say it's fortunate staff weren’t knocking on someone’s door to advise of a death.