Drone footage shows George Bolt Memorial Drive during construction efforts in 2010. Video / Auckland Airport
A recidivist robber has been jailed again after terrorising staff at a park-and-ride business – damaging seven cars as he rammed a gate and raced a stolen $82,000 Audi on the wrong side of the main road to Auckland Airport in a wild bid to shake police.
It wasthe second time the 29-year-old, still on parole from his last offence, had targeted the same business.
The man, who cannot yet be named to protect his fair trial rights for an unrelated pending charge, appeared in Manukau District Court this week as Judge Soana Moala sentenced him to two years and nine months’ imprisonment.
“I don’t know what will change you – whether you want to change,” the judge told the new father. “But the statistics for your child are not good ... because you’re going to prison regularly. All children suffer when ... their parents are not there.”
Court documents state the defendant arrived at the Māngere business, located at a rural spot about 5km north of the airport, on a pushbike between 6am and 7am on October 6 last year.
An Audi SQ7, similar to the vehicle the man stole. Photo / Supplied
The shift manager was driving around the lot, trying to find the owner of the abandoned bike, when the defendant approached her car and ordered her to hand over the keys. He swung a small silver object resembling an air compressor hose at her head and threatened to shoot her if she didn’t comply, but she refused and instead ran away.
“The defendant then entered the main office and took a bucket of keys from the safe, which was unlocked,” the agreed summary of facts for his case stated.
He used the keys to start a Volkswagen convertible, “shunting out of the way” the company’s people mover after the van was quickly parked in front of the convertible to try to box it in. He then rammed the car yard gate with the Volkswagen before running back inside and getting behind the wheel of an Audi SQ7 luxury SUV.
He crashed into the Volkswagen and clipped a police car, which had just arrived at the business, as he sped away. Police did not follow but the Eagle helicopter monitored the man as he sped in the direction of the airport’s domestic terminal.
“He reached speeds which exceed 120km/h in a 50km/h zone,” documents state. “The defendant actively drove down George Bolt Memorial Drive on the wrong side of the road, weaving between oncoming traffic and narrowly avoiding a number of head-on collisions.”
The defendant managed to avoid spikes but abandoned the SUV near the roundabout at George Bolt Memorial and Laurence Stevens drives, just metres from the terminal, after colliding with three other vehicles. He was arrested a short time later.
A recidivist robber abandoned a stolen $82,000 Audi at a roundabout near the Auckland Airport domestic terminal after a dangerous drive down George Bolt Memorial Drive. Photo / Supplied
The defendant has since pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary, punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment, as well as lesser charges of unauthorised use of a vehicle, failing to stop and reckless driving. Charges of threatening to kill the car yard manager and assaulting her with a hammer were withdrawn.
“You have been around for a long time now,” the judge said at his sentencing, pointing to aggravated robbery sentences in 2016 and 2017 and a sentence for assault with intent to injure in 2019.
The defendant was sentenced in 2016 to three years’ imprisonment for one of the robberies.
A High Court at Wellington justice ordered another sentence of five years and four months’ imprisonment the following year for two more robberies that occurred on the same day.
The defendant was seen on CCTV wearing a high-vis vest and disguised with a balaclava as he pointed a pistol – later determined to be a replica – at a dairy owner’s head, demanding cash.
He and a co-defendant left with the entire cash register, which had only $50 inside. Later that night, he served as the getaway driver as co-defendants stole over $42,000 and two bottles of alcohol from a local bar.
Judge Moala ordered a five-year starting point for the latest charges before factoring discounts for his guilty pleas, difficult childhood, the impact his incarceration will have on his child and for the “excellent” outcome of two restorative justice conferences in which he apologised to two of his latest victims in person.
The judge noted that both victims accepted his apology and said they didn’t want to see him go to prison again.
But that wouldn’t be possible given his extensive history and the danger he put the public in, the judge said.
“They pray that you will change,” she noted. “I don’t know if any of that matters to you. But I hope that you figure out a reason to change.”
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.
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