KEY POINTS:
Marek Kryzsztof Wrobel apparently had money in the bank when he set off on a crime spree breaking into campers' cars across the top of the South Island.
He used that money today to pay back the victims of his offending over New Year 2005-06 when he raided camping grounds in Golden Bay, Kaikoura, and on Banks Peninsula near Christchurch.
His sentencing on 42 charges of theft and unlawfully interfering with cars had been delayed so that he could get the money from the account in Australia and pay it into the account of his defence counsel Paul Norcross in Christchurch.
Mr Norcross told Christchurch District Court today that $12,257 had arrived and he had irrevocable authority from Wrobel to pay it to the courts so that it can be paid to the victims.
Added to the $2400 cash found with Wrobel when he was arrested in Christchurch, it will cover all of the $14,657 claimed, and Judge David Saunders ordered that reparation today when he sentenced Wrobel, who is a New Zealand citizen of Polish descent.
He sentenced Wrobel -- who has already been in custody since January 2006 -- to two years nine months in jail.
Wrobel now plans to leave New Zealand when he is able, and return to his family overseas but Judge Saunders warned him the Australian authorities might not allow him into the country because of his extensive record.
He had already served a two year 10 month jail sentence after using his car break-in skills in the same places on an earlier crime spree.
Mr Norcross said Wrobel was resentful that he had been made to serve the full sentence because he had not been able to do a rehabilitative programme in prison.
He was only out about a month when he set off with his equipment, including night vision gear, to do more camping ground raids.
Judge Saunders said he hoped Wrobel would be able to get one-on-one psychological help.
"You really need to try to uncover the reason for this greed when there was no real need.
"You need to get to the bottom of why, when you had funds available to you, you resorted to this kind of crime spree and caused anxiety and grief for people over the holiday period."
Mr Norcross said Wrobel wanted to address his compulsion to steal and acknowledged his effects on the victims. He was concerned at the publicity the case had generated and believed that was because of his ethnicity.
"He takes the view that New Zealanders are not afforded the same attention he's been given. Although he is a New Zealand citizen he says he feels like a stranger and unwelcome intruder."
Wrobel had skills as an electrical technician and had done that work in New Zealand.
"People who have the intelligence Mr Wrobel has, should be able to work things through in a constructive way," Judge Saunders said.
- NZPA
