Supermarket shoplifter back in jail after being told Nelson stores ‘sick of people like you’

Meat thief James Weir at an earlier sentencing in the Nelson District Court. He was sentenced again this week and was told to get a job after his latest bout of shoplifting from supermarkets. Photo / Tracy Neal

A judge has told repeat shoplifter and meat thief James Weir to go and get a job so he has money to spend in the stores he keeps stealing from.

The 40-year-old was this week sentenced in the Nelson District Court to five and a half months in prison on two sets of charges for shoplifting and breaching a trespass order on multiple occasions across multiple stores across Nelson and Tasman.

The offending happened after Weir was sentenced in November 2022 to nine months in prison but was granted leave to apply for home detention.

Described then as a “hungry meat thief”, Weir on that occasion went as far as to challenge a supermarket store manager who confronted him by asking, “What are you going to do about it?” before walking out the door with the stolen goods.

He had also confronted a worker outside a workshop with a fake pistol and wandered into a Motueka holiday park before settling down in one of the motel units to drink a beer.

At this week’s sentencing, Judge Jo Rielly noted Weir had also been sentenced in 2021 for similar offending.

Weir was back shoplifting from May to September last year, mostly small items of food and alcohol, but this escalated in seriousness to the point he was stealing valuable meat, Judge Rielly said.

On many occasions, he was on premises from where he’d been trespassed.

Judge Rielly said most of the time he stole items worth $100 or less, including expensive meat from two different supermarkets, and on one occasion he stole an item that would have cost $4.29.

“The owners and managers of supermarkets in Motueka, Richmond and Nelson are sick of people like you stealing from them.

“The community is generally sick of people stealing because the cost has to be passed on somewhere.

“While you might think, ‘I’m hungry, I’ll just go and steal something’, there’s a flow-on effect for everyone,” Judge Rielly said.

Weir, who appeared in court via video link from prison, spoke up and said he wanted to change, and that he wanted to get a job, possibly on a fishing boat.

Judge Rielly noted he’d been in custody a long time awaiting an outcome on his recent offending, before entering guilty pleas this week on the latest charges.

“You tell me you want to get a job and that’s what you need to do - get a job, keep busy and when you go to a store you can spend your money on what you want to buy.”

In sentencing Weir to 22 weeks in prison, Judge Rielly said his offending had to be denounced but the court was constrained over the type of sentence available, because of parameters over maximum penalties.

“Mr Weir, you are a mature man. Please, get yourself back on the straight and narrow.”

No order was made for reparation because Weir had no ability to pay it.

“That’s a great shame for the victim companies,” Judge Rielly said.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.