- Home
- What?s?on
- Observations
- Police?watch
- Home?security
- Advice
- Legal?directory
- Search?archives
- Contacts
Shoplifting funded morphine addiction
Christchurch stores were raided repeatedly ? and expensively ? to fund Jeffrey Paul Palmer?s morphine habit.
The unemployed 27-year-old, who is also known as Mathias, took large items and simply walked out of the big shops with them.
Sometimes he was confronted by security staff, but sometimes he just got away carrying boxes of power tools, a chainsaw, nail-gun, and a generator.
Police prosecutor Bronwen Skea said he on-sold the goods in exchange for morphine.
The total bill for his shoplifting amounted to $2109, Skea told the Christchurch District Court sitting today inside the men?s prison where Palmer has been held in custody on remand.
Judge Michael Crosbie again remanded him in custody for sentencing at the Rangiora Court House on November 18, and ruled out any prospect of home detention.
He said Palmer?s record included a breach of a home detention sentence and he was now scheduled for re-sentencing on matters where he breached community detention.
He pleaded guilty to 11 shoplifting charges, posession of a knife, and the breach of community detention.
Skea said his theft of a box of tools and a chain saw from a Mitre 10 Mega store was caught on security camera. He simply held the boxes above his head and walked past a check-out.
Five days later he stole a cordless phone and household items from Warehouse Stationery at Eastgate in Linwood, but the left the trolley behind and ran off when staff confronted him.
He got away from Bunnings at Tower Junction with a nail gun and power saw. He put them into a vehicle and drove off at speed.
He put down the microwave oven he was carrying and got away in a waiting car when Briscoes Northlands staff confronted him.
Staff confronted him at a liquor shop in Hereford Street and he gave back the whisky he was stealing, but he still got away with a $50 bottle of Kahlua.
He got away with DVDs and a roll of ?sold? tape used in The Warehouse.
At 1.30pm on August 29, he left Farmers in Northlands Mall with a stolen microwave worth $329 on a shopping trolley. He got on to an Orbiter bus which was followed by store staff, and he was arrested when he got off the bus at Eastgate.
He was found with a craft knife in his backpack. He said he used it to help with his shoplifting.
