Teenager goes to jail for dairy robbery

Judge describes 'thuggish behaviour'

Sebastian David James Mann’s dairy robbery got him some cash, tobacco, cigarettes and a three-year two-month jail term.

The judge said it was “an unbelievable tragedy” that a young person could throw away so much of his future for so little.

The 19-year-old had admitted the knife-point robbery of an Opawa dairy, and a $70 petrol drive-off in Addington where he had put a false number plate on his car.

He wrote a letter apologising to the woman dairy assistant. He had pressed a long knife against her side when she wasn’t quick enough about opening the till in the robbery on November 19.

“My intentions were most definitely not to hurt you in any way,” he wrote, assuring her that he would never go near her dairy again.

Mann wanted home detention but Judge Michael Radford ruled it out. “Home detention is not realistic in the circumstances. People in shops are vulnerable to what is really very thuggish behaviour.”

Defence counsel John Brandts-Giesen said Mann, a Balmoral farm worker, had previous convictions but none for violence. He was a hard worker with family commitments.

He was extremely contrite and wrote to the shop worker: “Unfortunately, I can’t take back my negative behaviour towards you.”

Mann acknowledged he had had a problem with drugs, but he would have time in prison to deal with that, said Mr Brandts-Giesen.

Judge Radford said Mann had acquired the false number plate from a car an associate had sold as scrap. He used it on his car for the petrol drive-off and the armed robbery.

He noted Mann had previous convictions for burglary and receiving. He accepted he had an unhappy childhood. Drugs and bad influences had put paid to his early ambitions.

He said a deterrent sentence was required. “People need to understand that if they rob dairies and other small businesses they are likely to be sent to prison.”