Five years jail for robbery

Press, 29 October 1977, Page 7

Five years jail for robbery

A man who became involved in the Addington j T.A.B. robbery because hei needed money to supply ai drug habit was jailed for five years by Mr Justice Roper in the Supreme Court j yesterday. The man, Larry Hemii Matthews, aged 26. who ap-j peared in the dock! handcuffed to a prison! officer, had the five-year | term added to a sentence of. four years and a half he is] serving fdr breaking out of 1 Addington Prison. Matthews pleaded guilty ■ on arraignment to a charge' of robbing Albert Charles Walpole of $13,192 on July*

18 and causing him grievous! , bodily harm. He also admit-) Ited two charges of unlaw-* "fully taking cars and one ofl 'burglary of a builder’s shed; •jin Cheam Place. On these :icharges he was sentenced to* j a year’s imprisonment, to be I served concurrently with the •other two terms. Mr P. H. B. Hall, for Mati thews, said that the prisoner presented a typical criminal ' picture — a deprived background. a risk of ini stitutionalisation. hopelessIness,. and addiction to he- ! roin. The real question was how long he should stay in ■‘prison. , Wysocki, Matthews’s cooffender, had been sentenced!

;I to eight years jail but that (had also included a charge •of aggravated robbery at ’) Wanganui which involved a lj woman shop assistant’s •being threatened with al > J knife. * The part played by Mat- ! thews in the Addington T.A.B. robbery was far less ■ than that of Wysocki, who had instigated and planned the robbery and had struck Mr Walpole with a baseballi bat, Mr Hall said. Wysocki had asked Matthews to got along and he had agreed be-; > cause he had needed money: to pay for his heroin addic-* tion. Mr Hall asked his Honour; II “to leave some light at the*

. end of the tunnel” for Mat- ; thews by not making the ; sentence so long as to make i him give up'all hope. His Honour said that the il aggravated robbery was a • most serious business as it ■ :had involved a planned at-* i tack on the manager of the i T.A.B. in which more than $13,000 had been stolen. The other man involved, Wysocki, had done the : major planning and had .{struck Mr Walpole. • I “Frankly. Matthews, I can"not bring myself to add anT other eight years to the four • land a half you have already >*got,” said his Honour.