Repeat robbery victim ‘philosophical’
A woman dairy owner has been forgiving and philosophical about being the victim of a teenage armed robber.
The June 15 incident at the dairy in New Brighton was the second time the woman had been the victim of an armed robbery.
That morning, she had been reading a report about a man being shot dead in an armed robbery in Auckland, and she had feared she was also going to die.
When 19-year-old Taukiri Manuell produced a gold coloured .22 pistol and grabbed her jersey, she pushed past him and fled.
Manuell fled too – in the taxi he had left parked nearby for his armed robbery.
His Christchurch District Court sentencing today heard that he did the robbery to get money to buy synthetic cannabis. He had earlier pleaded guilty to the robbery charge as well as shoplifting and driving while forbidden.
Defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger said Manuell accepted there would be a sentence of imprisonment. He accepted that the robbery would have been extremely traumatic for the victim.
He had written the judge an excellent letter, detailing that he had not wasted his time while in custody on remand, she said. He was likely to go through a young people’s rehabilitation programme during his sentence.
Judge Farish said the victim had moved to New Zealand from the Philippines, with her family. She had been forgiving and philosophical about the robbery.
Despite being terrified and traumatised, the woman said, in her victim impact statement to the court: “I don’t know what will help him. I hope the judge will make him return home to his family in the North Island or do some sort of job here in Christchurch so that he is busy working and not robbing people.”
Judge Farish added to Manuell’s sentence because of his previous violence convictions – he served a jail term in 2012 for threatening to kill – and because he was on bail at the time of the robbery. But she reduced the term because of his youth, his prospects for rehabilitation, and his guilty pleas.
She jailed him for two years eight months, and read him a first-strike warning.
A man in the public seating stood and shouted a salute as Manuell was led to the cells.
Category: Focus
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