Hamilton mum Brooke Knight was still recovering from childbirth in Waikato Hospital when she took part in the aggravated robbery. Photo / Alan Gibson.
A young mum was picked up from hospital a week after giving birth, leaving her baby in the neonatal unit, so she could join her partner in an aggravated robbery.
New mum Brooke Knight also had a second sick child in the hospital at the time when she and her partner, Lance Gray, barged into a Hamilton home and accosted the occupants, demanding cash and property.
Knight elbowed a wheelchair-bound woman in the face before stealing $100 cash and cigarettes, while Gray accosted the victim’s partner in the kitchen.
Gray has already been jailed for his part, but Knight was in the Hamilton District Court recently for sentencing on one charge of aggravated robbery.
The two victims were known to Knight and Gray through mutual friends.
About 11am on February 3, 2024, the female victim‘s partner was out on his driveway when the pair drove up. Gray, who was driving, nearly hit him.
The pair got out and went up to the ranch slider to the home.
The man ran inside and tried, unsuccessfully, to hold the ranchslider shut.
Gray picked up a hammer off the ground and forced the door open, and the pair went in.
Gray ran through to the kitchen and into the lounge where he kicked the wheelchair-bound victim in the ankleas she sat in a La-Z-Boy.
He then demanded money from the male victim that he claimed he was owed for an alleged drug debt. Knight yelled at the woman , demanding money. She also tried to take some property from her.
The woman resisted, and Knight elbowed her in the face before taking cigarettes and $100 cash.
As the couple left, they threatened to return to steal the victims’ television and stereo if they did not get their money back.
Gray then tried to smash the ranchslider by throwing chairs at it.
When questioned by police, Gray admitted his role and said he was in a “bad head space” at the time, while Knight declined to comment.
Gray was jailed in April last year for two years and nine months after earlier accepting a sentence indication.
At the time of the offending, Knight also had another one of her children in hospital.
Her counsel, Stephen Taylor, said Knight was in Waikato Hospital due to complications from her birth, having lost a “significant amount of blood”.
She was in observation while her newborn was in NICU.
Asked by Judge Tini Clark how she ended up getting involved, Taylor said Gray had texted numerous people to help him sort out an alleged drug debt before getting his partner involved.
On the day, Knight was expecting Gray to pick her up to get supplies for her hospital stay.
However, he had instead decided to go and sort out a drug debt at a nearby property, he said.
Given the drawn-out prosecution, Judge Clark said she still wasn’t clear if Knight accepted her involvement.
“This is a woman who was still healing from childbirth,” the judge said.
“She had a child in NICU [Newborn and Intensive Care Unit].
“Is she still maintaining that she didn’t do anything?” she asked.
Taylor said his client accepted her role, but he emphasised that it was Gray who was the organiser.
The judge said she was trying to figure out whether there was a distinction between the pair.
“If I can make a distinction ... then that would make a difference to the overall situation that she is in.”
Taylor said her client was on medication at the time and that “she was really caught up in the moment.”
“Caught up willingly or unwillingly,” the judge asked.
Taylor said the differentiation was her role in the actual offending.
“Her partner premeditated this, and Ms Knight was picked up from hospital in a vulnerable position and became involved in someone else’s planned offending.”
Taylor said Knight’s partner had sent texts to a variety of other people before getting her involved.
“He was really finding any way for a strength in a numbers plan.
“Ms Knight was not involved in any of those texts whatsoever.”
Crown prosecutor Matthew Temm said there were “some concerning elements” of the case which involved a particularly vulnerable victim.
He said both defendants had come to their respective sentencings, “pointing the finger at each other”.
Judge Clark said it had been hard to get a true feel for what happened and how Knight ended up in the position that she did.
Temm said Knight had contributed to the delay in sentencing as she had not engaged with probation.
Knight now found herself in custody, due to breaches and non-compliance on bail, had lost her transitional housing, while her mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment, looked after her other children.
“Things have gone from bad to worse for her,” the judge added.
The judge said the more she learned about Knight, the more she found “she does tend to disengage”.
“I’m not sure if that is akin to putting her head in the sand or not.”
She took a starting point of four years’ jail, before allowing discounts for her guilty plea, childhood, prospect of rehabilitation, and remorse.
Judge Clark jailed Knight for 22 months, but granted her leave to apply for home detention.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.