A novice burglar involved in a three-week series of after-closing tavern and social club burglaries in Hawke's Bay this year has learnt the hard way that crime does not pay.
Appearing in Hastings District Court, Mark Darwin Hokianga, 25, of Hastings, was sentenced to 27 months in jail. While telling him the burglaries from Napier to Waipukurau lacked sophistication and significant reward, despite the planning, Judge Bridget Mackintosh accepted there was plenty of remorse, highlighted by the man's immediate confessions to police when the spree came to an end with the stopping of a car returning to Hastings early one morning and his subsequent guilty pleas to 11 charges. While Hokianga admitted the charges, cousin and alleged co-offender Rewiti Christopher Hokianga, also 25, has pleaded not guilty and is due to appear in Napier District Court on November 20 for a possible setting of a trial date.
Mark Hokianga admitted planning and taking part in raids on Hastings bars: the Stortford Lodge Social Club, the Storty Bar, Roosters Brewhouse and the National Service Club; the Taradale Tavern, Taradale TAB, Sideline Bar and Breakers Restaurant in Napier; the Clive Hotel, Skinny Mulligan's in Waipawa, and, Farriers Arms in Waipukurau, from which he was on his way home when caught on May 15.
Premises were entered through roofs, alarms were set-off and a white shorn (onesie) was sometimes worn in an attempt to conceal identity, but the raids yielded less than $6000 of the mainly gaming machine and bar proceeds targets. However, the cost of damage has been estimated at about $13,000.
Defence counsel Richard Stone said the offences were an "aberration" in the life of Hokianga, who otherwise was known as a hard worker and family-oriented man.
