Retail crime: Almost 400 ram raids in six months, judge tells young offender the public have had enough

Ram raids have climbed to an average of more than two a day, prompting an Auckland judge to say the public and the police “are fed up with it”.

Police figures released yesterday show there were at least 388 “ram-raid style events” in a six-month period to the end of May, including 99 which remained unsolved.

During the six-month period, police said there were 218 prosecutions for ram raids, while 86 young people were referred to Police Youth Services.

Last year, police recorded 516 ram raids around the country.

Just a few hours after police released the latest data, a District Court judge in West Auckland told a convicted teenage ram raider; “The public are fed up with it, the police are fed up with it … and people want tougher penalties for this type of crime.”

Judge Ophir Cassidy’s comment came as she sentenced a young culprit in the Waitakere District Court who had admitted to two charges of burglary for his part in two ram raids in 2022.

The now 19-year-old was among a group who smashed their way into Harvey Norman in Westgate shortly after 11pm on May 2 last year with a Mazda Demio, plundering the store of phones, tablets and Apple products.

They escaped in another vehicle before heading to the Liquorland in Titirangi, this time using a Nissan Terrano to ram-raid the bottle shop and burgle spirits and beer.

Fleeing through the suburbs of West Auckland, as police set up checkpoints in Glen Eden, they eventually abandoned their car but were caught a short time later. At the time the man, then 18, was on bail after he was charged with an aggravated robbery, for which he was sentenced in September to home detention.

Judge Cassidy said the two charges the teen faced carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison each.

“Let that sink in. 10 years,” she said. “There was huge damage caused to both properties. Thousands and thousands of dollars that you cannot afford to repay.”

The judge also spoke generally about the impact of ram raids in the community.

“People out in our communities and in the public are saying that they’ve had enough. They’re saying the people that do these types of crimes should be thrown into prison.

“The public are fed up with it, the police are fed up with it … and people want tougher penalties for this type of crime. You have hurt and caused harm to people.”

After discounts for his guilty plea, young age and deprivation growing up, and time already spent on electronically-monitored bail, Judge Cassidy arrived at an end sentence of 14 months in prison.

Because the end sentence was under the two-year threshold where a community-based sentence becomes available, however, Judge Cassidy sentenced the teen to seven months’ home detention. He was also granted name suppression.

Police focus on prevention: ‘Better equipped, better advised’

Commenting on the ram raid figures, police assistant commissioner Chris de Wattignar said that as of last week, 472 stores previously ram-raided or victim of an aggravated robbery had security intervention installations completed under the Police Retail Crime Prevention Programme, with another 159 approved.

He said a focus beyond response to also include prevention was seeing results, with retailers “better equipped, better advised, and helping investigations”, police iwi and communities.

One success this week came when burglars left with nothing after breaking into Napier’s Michael Hill Jeweller store to discover there was no jewellery in the store at night.

Retail crime costs New Zealand retailers $1 billion each year, police estimate.

A fog cannon in action at Auckland's Jyotis Dairy when it was targeted by hammer-wielding offenders this month. Two people were hurt. Photo / Jyotis Dairy CCTV

Meetings were also taking place with the Indian business community on retail crime prevention, de Wattignar said.

Approved or completed security intervention installations included 448 fog cannons, 356 security sirens and 388 CCTV systems or system upgrades, he said.

“[We’re] deploying all the resources we have to tackle this kind of crime from all angles. We know the impact this has on communities and we are determined to play our part.”

The comments from de Wattignar came as Act Party leader David Seymour stood outside Jyotis Dairy in Mt Roskill, where dairy owner Bhavana Patel was brutally attacked by hammer-wielding robbers last week, to announce a new law and order policy.

Seymour said he wants to give judges the power to hand down longer sentences to people who commit violent crimes against people at their place of work.

Police are yet to make any arrests in the Jyotis Dairy case and continue to investigate.

Police’s National Retail Investigation Support Unit has laid 1331 charges against 223 offenders since May last year, according to police. Since December 1 last year there have been 14,215 prosecutions and 1429 youth referrals for retail crime.

Meanwhile, Fast Track - a programme developed by Oranga Tamariki and police to set off a community-led response to serious or persistent offending by 10 to 13-year-olds - had referred 230 children in the six-month period to multi-agency teams for action plans that are developed within 48 hours.

Over King’s Birthday weekend alone there were 17 arrests around the country for retail and youth crime, including in Waikato, Canterbury and Otago.

Nearly all offenders caught at the start of the month were youths, de Wattignar said.

“When it comes to children and young people, the youth justice system aims to keep them out of the formal criminal system, while at the same time holding them to account.

“This is where our partnership with Oranga Tamariki on the Fast Track programme adds value … since December 2022 there have been 230 referrals made through this process, and only 23 per cent of those referred from the Fast Track through to the multi-agency teams have been referred again, showing the impact quick support can have on reducing reoffending.”

The 2022 ram raid data showed 70 per cent of the 708 offenders caught by police were aged under 18. One in 10 were aged under 13.

Police Minister considers stats ‘unacceptable’

Government Police Minister, Ginny Anderson told the Herald the level of retail crime is “completely unacceptable” and said the Government was taking steps to get on top of the issue.

“No one should go to work and feel unsafe,” she said in a statement.

“[The steps we’re taking are] including intensive programmes to break the cycle of offending and provide support to retail owners - but we know there is more work we need to do.”

Meanwhile, National’s police spokesman Mark Mitchell rubbed further salt in the wounds of his party’s opposition by reminding the public of Labour’s need to change police minister four times whilst in office.

“This is the sad reality under a soft-on-crime Labour Government,” he told the Herald.

“Labour has delivered a crime wave the country has never been inflicted with before. The only action they have taken has been to reduce the prison population.”

Mitchell said National, should they be elected in October would take public safety seriously and would be “determined on restoring law and order”.

“One of the biggest problems is when they keep absconding or they’re out on the streets, they pose a huge risk to the community and to themselves as well,” he said.

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years.