Travis, who worked as a mechanic earning a grand each week, found he had lost motivation for his job. After spending a few days "bumming out", he offered his resignation.
"I thought 'f*** I can't handle my job', packed it in, which was stupid.
"I've always my whole life been happy-go-lucky. I've never been depressed in my life. I don't think I had depression, I was just bumming out."
Before he knew it he was $7000 behind in mortgage payments.
"At that point I was applying for jobs everywhere. I'd bloody work in McDonald's if I had to. I've never found it so hard to get a job in my life."
Then one day, Travis saw another person in the internal lobby at ANZ, doing something that did not look "normal" at the self-deposit boxes. It gave Travis his idea.
He returned to the bank on May 15 with his fishing contraption and dropped an empty deposit bag in to see if he could fish it out again.
"I seen cameras everywhere," he said. "Looking back now . . . it's f***ing stupid. I should have just asked family for money."
As Travis threw his line in, he said he was "shaking".
He said the people he was trying to steal from never crossed his mind and all he could think about was losing his family home.
He tried on two more occasions to fish deposits out, one from ASB, with no luck. However, the last time, a security guard watched him from a laptop.
Travis went outside and sat down on a nearby bench.
"That's when I realised, 'shit, this is people's businesses'.
"I was sitting there just thinking 'you're screwed, you're f***ed, your house is going to go' . . . and then a cop car rolled up, went past, and I thought 'oh shit, that's all I need'. Another couple pulled up."
Earlier this year, Travis pleaded guilty to theft, two counts of attempted theft, and two counts of using a document for pecuniary advantage.
The latter charges relate to cheques of $2030.70 and $1208.62 which were made out to someone else but altered to say they were for Travis. While he pleaded guilty to the charges, Travis said he did not know the cheques were altered and was given them as payment for a car by someone else.
He said he pleaded guilty to the cheque charges so other charges against him would be dropped.
Travis, who was sentenced on Monday by Judge Lynne Harrison to 120 hours of community work and three months of community detention with a weekend curfew, did not expect anyone to feel sorry for him.
Travis wanted to apologise to the man whose cheques he cashed. He will pay the victim back at $15 per week.
"I shouldn't have done what I done, no way. Looking back now, there's no explanation for it. I should have found other ways. I f***ed up, I admit that.
"Now it's not just losing the house, it's losing the house and all these charges. I'm not this happy-go-lucky guy anymore, I'm living in a s**t box."
