Serial, violent shoplifter Terence Tere admits hammer attack at Auckland Woolworths

• Terence Mario Tere, 38, pleaded guilty to over a dozen shoplifting charges, some of them violent.
• The most serious charge involved a hammer attack on a security guard at Glenfield Woolworths.
• Tere’s sentencing was delayed as he seeks transfer to a specialist court for addiction issues.

A serial thief who was once convicted for being an accessory after the fact to murder following a fatal purse-snatching attempt is back in police custody after attacking a security guard while trying to steal tinned corned beef.

Terence Mario Tere recently pleaded guilty to more than a dozen charges involving violent shoplifting incidents. The most serious relate to a not-at-all-subtle theft attempt involving corned beef tins at a Glenfield Woolworths store in which the 38-year-old attacked a security guard with a hammer.

“The victim received a large cut on the right-side cranium of his head,” reads the agreed summary of facts for the case, which the Herald received this week after Tere’s lawyer unsuccessfully argued the documents should not be made public to protect his client’s privacy.

“The force of the hammer strike caused a frontal skull fracture and a concussion, requiring frequent monitoring by medical professionals.”

Tere appeared before Judge Kathryn Maxwell in Auckland’s North Shore District Court on Friday for what was scheduled to be a sentencing hearing after having pleaded guilty to the slew of charges late last year.

Auckland resident Terence Tere was formerly convicted of being an accessory to murder after the fact. He's now set to be sentenced for a series of violent shoplifting incidents, including one that resulted in a security officer's cracked skull due to a hammer attack. Photo / Supplied

However, the hearing was reset after Tere indicated a last-minute interest in applying to transfer his case to a specialist court for defendants battling drug or alcohol addiction. The judge said she had doubts he would be accepted into the programme given the violence involved in his admitted crimes but allowed him an opportunity to ask another judge.

If not admitted into the programme, he will return for sentencing in April. In the meantime, he will remain in custody to await the outcome.

“To be frank, I would think this is one of those files that really needs to be finalised,” Judge Maxwell said, explaining that there are a number of victims who likely want closure.

Murder case history

Tere first earned unwanted media attention in June 2008, after businesswoman Jian “Joanne” Wang was fatally hit by a stolen 4WD as she chased after her stolen bag in the Manukau Westfield shopping centre carpark.

Wang’s young son witnessed the purse snatching and the fatal injuries that followed.

Joanne Wang. Photo / Supplied

Co-defendant Christopher Jacob Shadrock was behind the wheel and a High Court at Auckland jury found him guilty of murder for the first time in 2010. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of imprisonment of 12 years.

The Crown alleged Shadrock, having snatched the handbag, tried to back away from Wang but then chose to drive forward into her to get away when his path behind was blocked.

Tere was later convicted of the accessory charge and was sentenced to six months' home detention for destroying evidence. He set fire to the 4WD in the days after the killing.

Terence Tere appears in the High Court at Auckland in April 2010, accused of accessory to murder after the fact for the death of Joanne Wang. Photo / Natalie Slade

Both Shadrock and Tere would later be allowed retrials in 2012 after successful appeals. But those trials ended with the same results for both.

By the time Tere was resentenced a second time, he was sent home. He had already served his time.

Mayo and chocolate bars

Tere‘s latest charges span a 15-month period and include supermarkets across Auckland from Pukekohe to Silverdale.

In August 2022, he shovelled $821 worth of groceries into shopping bags as he pushed a trolley through a Howick-based Woolworths store.

“The defendant pretended to scan the items in the self-service checkout before making his way to the exit,” court documents state, adding that the groceries were never recovered.

A similar scheme, this time at a Mt Eden Woolworths, escalated into violence in April 2023 when another person recovered Tere’s trolley with almost $600 worth of stolen groceries and returned it to the store.

“The defendant re-entered the store and approached Victim 1 who was located at the customer service counter,” the summary of facts states. “The defendant picked up a steel rubbish bin over his head and threw it at Victim 1, hitting him in the arm.”

When later interviewed by authorities about both incidents, Tere said he didn’t remember the Howick theft. He recalled, however, throwing the bin in Mt Eden, explaining that he was angry because his personal items were in the trolley with the stolen goods.

He now faces up to one year’s imprisonment for both shoplifting cases and for the common assault charge.

He also faces up to seven years' imprisonment for several incidents in which he stole items worth over $1000.

They include a January 2023 heist in which he returned to the Howick store and took $1137 worth of items; an April 2023 incident in which he took over $2200 worth of items from a Grey Lynn store; an incident 10 days later in which he took $1052 worth of items from a Waiata store; a May 2023 incident in which two trolleys at a Silverdale Pak’nSave were filled with $1481 worth of mayonnaise and corned beef; and the Glenfield corned beef heist that resulted in the hammer attack.

Other thefts included from a Pukekohe Woolworths in which he was observed placing “copious amounts of corned beef and mayonnaise” worth almost $750 into a large duffle bag and a Silverdale Woolworths in which he tried to leave with $900 worth of chocolate bars, although he ended up leaving with just one bag of pilfered confectionary worth $116 after the wheels on the trolly locked.

Violence escalated

On multiple occasions, the theft attempts ended in violence as staff or bystanders attempted to stop Tere.

During the Pukekohe mayonnaise and corned beef heist, several members of the public followed him to the carpark to intervene. One tried to grab the duffle bag, which at that point was being carried by a woman alleged to have been helping Tere.

“Tere intervened and became physically aggressive with the victim, grabbing the back of his neck and striking him to the back of the head with a closed fist,” court documents state. “The victim’s glasses were knocked off his face by the defendant.

“The defendant attempted to strike the victim again, however the victim grasped the defendant in a headlock and backed him towards the vehicle.”

At that point, Tere managed to “wiggle out” of the grasp and ran towards an awaiting getaway vehicle, documents state. The victim at first followed but decided to give up the chase after cutting his foot on a piece of glass that had smashed from the stolen goods.

The violence escalated significantly a month later, ending with the Glenfield hammer attack on November 4, 2023.

Auckland resident Terence Tere. Photo / Supplied

Earlier that afternoon, Tere appears to have stolen the hammer from a Sunnynook Woolworths where he stole $600 worth of goods. Tere placed the hammer in the internal child’s seat of the trolley but kept his hand on it as he left the store without paying.

“The hammer was in this location to be seen by staff and to be used should he have been challenged regarding the theft,” authorities alleged.

He wasn’t challenged at that location, but the circumstances changed less than 30 minutes later when he tried his luck at the nearby Glenfield Mall store.

While there, he began placing cans of corned beef directly into his backpack.

“F*** off,” he said when a store manager approached him and asked if he needed a basket.

A security guard stopped Tere as he walked out of the store without paying.

“[A] struggle occurred between the two, causing the backpack to tear with all the corned beef cans falling on to the floor,” court documents state.

Two security guards then followed Tere as he walked to the parking garage. That’s when he retrieved the hammer from his vehicle and attacked one of the men.

Police caught up to Tere at a nearby State Highway 1 onramp.

“F*** off,” he said again, this time to police, as he resisted arrest by thrashing his arms and hitting an officer.

Other than that outburst, he declined to comment, court documents state.

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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