Two nights out trying to steal from vehicles on hilltop properties in Napier have cost a man more than four months' freedom because he was already barred from being out at night.
In the Napier District Court yesterday, Judge Geoff Rea decided there was little need for 29-year-old Matthew Paul Jenssen to spend any more time incarcerated, with a chance of a job at sea expected to limit the opportunities to offend again.
The Corrections Department noted, however, that Jenssen would have little prospect of completing other sentences, such as the intensive supervision he had been under or 119 hours of community work hours which were still outstanding.
Jenssen had pleaded guilty to four charges of unlawfully interfering with vehicles, one of theft from a car, one of unlicensed driving while forbidden, and one of a breaching conditions of an intensive supervision order.
He was sentenced to six months' jail, Judge Rea saying it would mean he would be eligible for release almost immediately, taking into account the time he had been in custody because he had offended while on bail.