A teenager connected to a string of jewellery store robberies has been jailed after police found videos of him modelling luxury watches and sticking his hands into a duffel bag with over $100,000 worth of missing loot.
On another occasion, police found Vallen Paul Chapman, then 18, hiding in a roof cavity with a large amount of cash stuffed in his underwear.
He turned 19 while in jail, having spent 401 days in custody awaiting sentencing after his electronically monitored bail was rescinded because he kept getting arrested.
“This type of offending has to stop, Mr Chapman,” an exasperated-sounding Judge Debra Bell said last week as she ordered 23 months’ imprisonment - a term that, his lawyer noted, would likely result in his quick release on time served.
“It must stop. You need to stop completely.
“You need to take all the help you can get ... so you can turn your life around.”
Authorities say the six-month crime spree started on February 10 last year, less than a week before Chapman’s 18th birthday, with the robbery of Sona Sansaar jewellery store in Papatoetoe.
Court documents do not accuse Chapman of having participated in the robbery itself, but two weeks later numerous items from the business were found on him when he was arrested on an unrelated matter.
They included a $2200 diamond ring, numerous gold chains, pearls and diamond earrings, as well as labels for other expensive items that were not recovered. He was charged with receiving stolen property.
Chapman was arrested again three weeks later after being the front passenger in a stolen Toyota Altezza that rammed a police car in Mission Bay and fled. The car was clocked going 80-90km/h along Tamaki Drive before police spiked all four tyres.
“The Toyota continued to drive around 40km/h for around 20 minutes on the Northwestern Motorway while being followed by police,” court documents state. “The tyres of the Toyota disintegrated due to the damage on the tyres and was forcefully stopped.”
The next incident happened a month later, on April 12, when Patridge Jewellers store in Westfield Newmarket mall was ram-raided.
Employees fled into a locked back room after six masked thieves backed a stolen Toyota Aqua into the store around closing time and began smashing cabinets with hammers and tyre irons.
The incident was caught on CCTV.
Although only in the store for a minute and a half, the group managed to pilfer 111 pieces of high-value jewellery, Judge Bell noted.
Just like the prior jewellery store robbery, there is no evidence proving Chapman participated in the heist. But videos found on an associate’s phone timestamped two days after the robbery showed the defendant wearing a watch from the store and posing with the bag of stolen goods.
Police estimated the items to be worth $229,000, but they couldn’t provide the court with an itemised list of each piece’s individual value - reportedly because the jewellery store was reluctant for the thieves to have that information. So Judge Bell instead sentenced Champman on the more vague figure of “over $100,000″, which is what he pleaded guilty to.
Those videos were taken at 2am on April 14 last year.
At 5.40pm that same day, a Michael Hill Jewellers in St Lukes Mall was targeted by six masked offenders in a stolen Nissan who tried unsuccessfully to bash in the store’s “anti-bandit” security glass.
“Three of the offenders crawled under the barrier and entered the store itself, one armed with a hammer and another with a black club,” court documents state. “The three offenders began smashing the display counters and began taking various items of jewellery and watches.
“These were placed in a bag or passed to those offenders still outside.”
As they did so, one staff member ran to a safe room while another “cowered in fear” in a corner “whilst the offenders worked around her”.
In total, police said, 202 pieces of high-value jewellery were either taken or damaged in the heist.
Again, Chapman wasn’t charged with participating in the robbery but instead with receiving stolen goods. A video on his phone showed him one week later posing with a $1599 watch from the store.
The final offence involved the 1.25am robbery of a McDonald’s restaurant in Wesley in August 2024 by seven young men - four of whom have pleaded guilty.
Using hammers, crowbars and a wheel clamp, the thieves smashed the restaurant’s glass to gain entry, then pried open the tills. As they made their way back to the stolen getaway cars, the group smashed a TV and multiple kiosks, seemingly for the fun of it, CCTV showed.
After switching cars, the group fled on foot in nearby Mt Roskill. But a police dog was able to pick up their scent and led police to a nearby residence. Six young men were immediately arrested before authorities scoured the property more thoroughly.
“After searching the house, Mr Vallen Chapman was located hiding in the ceiling cavity,” court documents state. “Upon searching Mr Vallen Chapmen, $1130 in cash was found concealed inside his underwear.
“Mr Vallen Chapman declined to comment.”
He was again charged with receiving stolen goods, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Sacha Norrie emphasised her client’s age during last week’s sentencing and asked for reductions totalling 75%.
Due to the mandatory credit he’ll receive for the time he spent in jail awaiting trial, he’ll likely be released not too long after the hearing even if he is sentenced to prison, she predicted. But if the judge was to order a sentence of community detention, it might provide some assurance that he will have ongoing rehabilitative support, Norrie suggested.
“This is serious offending that is repetitive,” the judge responded, explaining that she couldn’t allow community supervision. “A message needs to be sent that we can’t have this type of offending, which is problematic.”
She did, however, order six months of post-detention conditions to his prison sentence.
The end sentence reflected 50% in reductions, including for his guilty pleas, youth and neural development impairments.
“There is nothing before me to indicate he is ready to undergo any rehabilitation,” the judge noted, adding that the youth discount had to be tempered by the lack of impulsivity involved with handling stolen goods.
Norrie emphasised that Chapman was in joint possession of the bag of jewellery, with others also present in the video. It can only be proven, she argued, that her client had the goods under his control for the 20 seconds of the video.
A report prepared for the court ahead of his sentencing described Chapman as easily manipulated and misled. The defendant said he knew what he was doing was wrong, but he had fallen in with the wrong crowd - all people he had met through his involvement in the youth justice system.
He blamed his legal troubles for his grandfather’s heart problem.
“Your grandparents were always telling you to get out of that type of offending,” the judge noted, adding that they expressed being tired of police always showing up at their home.
There were no victim impact statements or reparation requests, but one of the jewellery stores told police they could no longer get insurance in New Zealand because of all the robberies and were forced to purchase more expensive policies from overseas.
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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