Kawakawa home invasion: Second woman jailed for robbing 92-year-old

Bella Rudolph has been sentenced to more than five years’ jail for her part in the aggravated robbery of a 92-year-old woman in her home near Kawakawa in 2019. Photo / Peter de Graaf

A Northland woman has been sentenced to more than five years and seven months in jail for her part in a violent robbery of a 92-year-old in her own home.

The incident, on a rural road near Kawakawa in 2019, shocked Northland and left the victim in hospital with a head injury.

The main offender, Carissa Angelique Davis, was jailed in 2020 for five years and nine months after pleading guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and aggravated robbery. Davis also admitted using the elderly woman's bank cards to siphon $700 from her account.

Last Friday her co-offender, Bella Rina Rudolph, 27, was sentenced on a charge of aggravated robbery.

The Crown withdrew a charge of wounding with intent, accepting that Davis had committed the assault.

Judge John McDonald told the court the two women had been playing pokies at the Klondike Hotel in Kawakawa on January 9, 2019, when they ran out of money and decided to commit a burglary.

The victim, who was 92 at the time and used a walker to get around, was watching the evening news when the women knocked at her door. They asked for petrol then for a glass of water.

Rudolph drank the water then pushed past the woman to use the toilet. The pair then searched the house for items to steal.

Addressing Rudolph, Judge McDonald said: "She followed you in her walker, complaining about your behaviour and smoking in her house. The victim made her way to the kitchen and tried to call police on the landline but Ms Davis pulled the phone from the wall. The 92-year-old was very brave and plucky because she attempted to stop you searching her house and taking property. She had no chance of course, you are younger and stronger then her."

Davis then struck the victim twice on the back of the head with an object, believed to be a marble elephant.

The women took her handbag, containing her bank cards and $30 cash, as they left.

What upset the victim, however, was that the women had also taken a calling card her late husband had given her when they first met at a dance more than 70 years earlier.

The card, which had great sentimental value, was later recovered by police.

Judge McDonald said the victim impact statement, prepared for Davis' sentencing last year, showed terrible harm had been done.

''Now she [the victim] feels like a prisoner in her own home, she locks the doors, has nightmares and wakes screaming in the night ... she hopes she dies before you and Davis are released from prison.''

Prosecutor Mike Smith said aggravating features included a degree of premeditation, home invasion, the vulnerability of the victim and sentimental value of one of the items taken.

Defence lawyer Nick Leader said although Rudolph's guilty plea came late, on the day her trial had been due to start, it spared the now 94-year-old from having to give evidence.

Rudolph did not have a history of violent offending and was herself shocked by the violence that had occurred, he said.

A cultural report described a childhood marred by neglect, having to steal and beg to survive, and early exposure to drugs, alcohol and violence, Leader said.

She told the report writer she was raised not knowing right from wrong, or what was normal and what was not.

Judge McDonald reduced the starting sentence of seven years by 10 per cent for her guilty plea and another 10 per cent for her troubled background, arriving at an end sentence of five years and 219 days.