Paul Holmes with his Jeep four wheel drive. The car was recently stolen from outside a Hastings pharmacy while Holmes was inside the store. Photo / Herald on Sunday
The second man who stole Paul Holmes' SUV to visit the sick mother of his co-offender has been sentenced in the Napier District Court.
Matthew Adam Jury, 19, was supported in court by his mother today where he faced charges of theft and the unlawful taking of a motor vehicle
- Mr Holmes' $60,000 Jeep Cherokee.
Jury and his co-offender Zane Smiley Hodgson, 18, were in Hastings when they spotted Holmes' late model Jeep Cherokee parked with the keys still in it.
They took it, as Hodgson's mother was sick with cancer in Taupo and they were attempting to visit her, Jury's counsel Michael McAleer said.
However, their plan was compromised when they also made off with $151 of petrol from Gull Service Station on Taradale Rd and were later caught by police on the Napier-Taupo road. Mr McAleer described it as "opportunistic offending''.
