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Earthquake looter Jack Duckmanton is in custody for a month awaiting sentence after admitting breaking into an Avonside Drive house that had been damaged and abandoned after the 7.1 earthquake hit Christchurch.
Christchurch District Court was told that Duckmanton and his co-offender were inside the house when the owner returned home on the evening of the quake and called the police.
Duckmanton, an unemployed 20-year-old, admitted two charges of burglary and one charge of breaching a 200-hour community work sentence he was given in June.
The first burglary, in which a laptop computer worth $1400 was stolen from a house in Randolph Street, was committed before the earthquake.
The police say Duckmanton went to the Avonside Drive house about 8.30pm on September 4, with his associate, a 19-year-old mechanic. Duckmanton knocked on the door to see if anyone was home and then entered the house through a window.
The house was unoccupied because of damage it received early that day but the pair did an untidy search inside and loaded items into bags.
They fled when the owner arrived and called the police but they were found nearby and Duckmanton had items of stolen property on him.
He told police the burglary had been his associate's idea and he had only been the look-out.
Defence counsel Donald Dickson made no application for bail for Duckmanton pending sentence. He was remanded in custody when he first appeared in court last week.
Judge Gary MacAskill remanded him in custody for sentence on October 19. He called for a pre-sentence report with a report on Duckmanton's suitability for home detention but said that was not an indication of the likely sentence.
Curiosity about earthquake damage was not accepted as an excuse for going onto a property in Barbadoes Street, when 26-year-old Shannon Kenneth O'Connor appeared in court after his arrest on Saturday on a charge of burglary.
He appeared in court seeking release on bail.
Defence counsel Gilbert Hay said O'Connor, a painter, had simply been nosy though he had been with an associate who had taken items which police said had been placed in a car.
Judge MacAskill said he was not willing to take the chance of releasing O'Connor on bail in the current circumstances in Christchurch and remanded him in custody to September 23. O'Connor faces three charges of burglary. The judge said he was "in effect charged with looting".
- NZPA
