A 27-year-old father of seven will spend at least the next two Christmases away from the kids after joining a growing list of young people being jailed for dairy, service station and bar robberies in Hawke's Bay.
Justin Paul Ropiha, of Hastings, had denied the aggravated robbery of the Khalsa Dairy in Oliphant Rd, Raureka, about 6.45pm on the Sunday night of July 12, 2015, but was found guilty earlier this year by a jury after hearing evidence including a shopkeeper's recognition of the bat-wielding raider as a regular customer, despite Ropiha's attempts to conceal his identity.
Appearing before Judge Bridget Mackintosh Napier District Court yesterday, he then shared the van back to Hawke's Bay Prison with 19-year-old Hunter Waihape (also known as Turipa) who was sentenced to five years and five months jail for mid-evening robberies of two Napier service stations three days apart in late August this year, including one in which a lone attendant's arm was slashed with a machete.
Their imprisonment followed that of young Hastings men HMS Apuwai, Michael Yardley and Yontae McClutchie the day before for their parts in the mid-afternoon knifepoint robbery of the Westshore Corner Store in Napier on October 7.
Also in jail for robbery in Hawke's Bay is 33-year-old Hastings father-of-six Daniel Raumano Hanley, who committed two raids during a three-month spate in which robbers targeted dairies, bars and service stations in quest of cash, cigarettes and other tobacco products.