Woman given P.D. for aggravated robbery

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 6

Woman given P.D. for aggravated robbery

PA Auckland A young woman, aged 17, has been sentenced to nine months’ periodic detention for the aggravated robbery of a woman in an Auckland street. Mr Justice Barker said in the High Court that the sentence he placed on Kerehoma Fleur Harris was much against his better judgment because such offending deserved imprisonment. A number of mitigating factors existed, however, in the case. His Honour took into account Harris’s youth, background, and the fact that she had pleaded guilty to the charge at an early stage.

Harris had been in social welfare custody for five weeks and had been in Mount Eden Prison a week, he said.

She was possibly pregnant also. The co-offender in the robbery had been dealt with leniently by another High Court judge in the belief that Harris had used a knife in the robbery. “Now it seems it was the co-offender who wielded the knife.” Harris and the cooffender had accosted the woman with a knife and robbed her of possessions valued at $BO. Dr Don Mathias, for Harris, said she had a disturbed family background. Her father, who had been violent towards the family, had left home, and her mother was a patient at Kingseat Hospital.

Harris lived on the streets and had no work. Dr Mathias said Harris

believed she was pregnant. His Honour said the offence was Harris’s second charge of aggravated robbery. “It is appalling that citizens in this city cannot go about their lawful occasions in a principal street without being set upon,” he said. “Street muggings are a feature of other larger and more cosmopolitan cities than Auckland and the courts must do what they can to stop them developing in this city.” He sentenced Harris to nine months periodic detention and placed her under supervision for 21 months to be concurrent with the supervision she was already receiving after release from corrective training last year.