Passing police patrol saw robbery attempt

Press, 10 March 1984, Page 4

Passing police patrol saw robbery attempt

As two robbers were clubbing a garage attendant, a police patrol car drove past and the alertdriver saw what was happening and he swung the car into the forecourt and was on the scene before the matter was reported, Mr Justice Roper was told in the High Court yesterday. His Honour sentenced Mark Richard Whittaker, aged 23, a prison inmate, to two years and a half imprisonment on a charge of assault with intent to rob.

That sentence will be served at the end of the term of two years and a half he is at present serving on charges of burlary and receiving. Whittaker was found guilty by a jury on a charge that on September 17, 1983, with Billy Asi and Terrence Rangi Whittaker, he assaulted Dennis John Brewin with intent to rob.

Evidence was given by Mr Brewin, a rubber worker and part-time garage attendant, that he was closing up Stadium Motors in Pages

Road about 11 p.m. on a Saturday when he was suddenly confronted by two masked men, one of whom was carrying a pick handle. He grabbed hold of the pick handle and saw that the other man had a rifle by his side. The two men advanced on him and he stumbled into a display stand by the front door and went down.

With his legs he warded off blows from a club wielded by a third person. He kept his grip on the pick handle and the man holding it stomped on his face with his foot

The person with the rile took off through glass at the back of the workshop when the police suddenly arrived. He suffered a wound to the back of his head which had to be stitched.

At that time a police patrol car drove past the garage in Pages Road and Constable Michael James Wilson saw Mr Brewin being attacked with clubs. He swung the car into the forecourt and leapt out.

Constable Wilson said he saw two persons attacking

Mr Brewin and a third dressed in black dashed out through the back of the garage. The sawn off rifle was found by a boy when he climbed over the back fence of his home in Bickerton Street to retrieve a ball. He left it where it was and told his mother who called the police. The man who escaped from the garage was tracked by a police dog through several properties but the trail was lost in Bickerton Street, according to the evidence. For Whittaker, Mr P. H. B. Hall said that the jury had found that Mark Whittaker was the person with the sawn off .22 rifle who escaped from the scene. Whittaker still protested his innocence. There was no evidence that the rifle was loaded.

The probation report made depressing reading and it was a tragedy for him that he would not be able to be with his child who was soon to be born. Mr Hall submitted that any term imposed should

not be made cumulative on the sentence Whittaker was serving on other matters. His Honour, said that Whittaker still protested his innocence but he had to accept the jury’s verdict “This is a case where you and two others attempted to rob a garage attendant late at night It is obvious that they are a class of persons who are very much at risk,” said his Honour. Whittaker was armed with the rifle and his companion with clubs and in the course of the incident they set about the attendant with their weapons. It was only the timely arrival of the police patrol which saw was happening which prevented the matter going further.

“You have an appalling list of convictions. I am reluctant to write anybody off as a hopeless case but you are getting very close to it,” his Honour said. The term he was serving complicated sentencing. His two companions who were caught at the scene were each sentenced to four years, Mr Justice Roper said.