Jail after fake supermarket heist

File photo / NZ Herald

When police interviewed Jade Kaire-Laybourn after what they thought was a supermarket robbery, she was horrified and tearful.

The checkout operator was also acting, after staging a fake heist with her boyfriend Tuki Hanlon at Countdown Tikipunga on October 17.

Minutes earlier, Hanlon - jailed yesterday for 11 months - had walked up to his girlfriend's checkout at Countdown, where she worked part-time.

It was 9.35pm. He had two bags of chips and a note that said "shut your mouth, I have a gun, don't look at anyone, if anyone follows I won't hesitate, give me all the money''.

Kaire-Laybourn scanned Hanlon's chips, he gave her the note, and she handed over $1329.40

Kaire-Laybourn then claimed she had been robbed, and that the robber had a gun.

She faked tears, shock and horror.

Three weeks later police uncovered the lie.

Police laid three charges of burglary against Hanlon - one for Countdown and two related to a break-in by him and an associate at two baches at a bay about 40km northeast of Whangarei, on June 12, this year.

He admitted all three charges and yesterday was sentenced in the Whangarei District Court to 11 months' jail.

Judge John McDonald said Hanlon had entered the supermarket wearing a pair of hand gloves and made attempts to conceal his face. Kaire-Laybourn's behaviour after the pair colluded was "nonsense''.

"How you thought police would fall for it is beyond me,'' the judge said.

Kaire-Laybourn had given police a totally different description of Hanlon.

Hanlon told a probation officer he got into a relationship with Kaire-Laybourn after moving to Whangarei from Auckland and that financial pressure led him into crime.

He had been in custody since November and after serving time in jail, he wished to return to Auckland.

Kaire-Laybourn has pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and giving a false statement of crime.

She is on bail and will be sentenced in February.