Kiwi rugby player jailed over $300,000 ice-fuelled theft

The former rugby player stole more than $300,000 to fuel a P addiction. Photo / Thinkstock

A "gifted" former rugby player and his partner have been jailed in Melbourne after stealing more than $300,000 to fuel a P addiction.

Auckland-born Robin Nanai, 25, and his partner Melissa Gilles, 30, were sentenced to two years in prison in a Melbourne court yesterday after hearing how he turned into an "animal" by the drug methamphetamine, Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported.

Nanai attended the New Zealand Institute of Sport from school age on a scholarship for rugby union and league.

But he left the institute to find work, and in 2012 became addicted to using methamphetamine in Melbourne.

The Age reported the court heard his life became "absolute chaos", and his partner, also using P daily, gave him money from the banking she did at her office job.

Prosecutor Peter Pickering said that after a chief financial officer, appointed to the business in 2013, found various cash deposits had not been banked, Gilles admitted she had handed them to Nanai.

The Agereported that Nanai said Gilles did not know he was taking the money, but that they would share meth every day and he "sent the rest of the money to New Zealand".

Nanai pleaded guilty to the theft of $325,000 between February and September 2013 and Gilles pleaded guilty to false accounting.

The judge noted that Nanai was a "gifted" rugby player and had been diagnosed with low-cognitive functioning.

The Age reported the judge said that although his size may protect him "from physical abuse, others make seek to use it to their advantage".

He told the couple the offences were serious, committed over a sustained period and involved a large amount of money, but that each had the "capacity to lead decent, honest lives" as long as they remained drug-free.