Men jailed for more than three years for aggravated robbery that got them $20 and two roaches

Tawara Wharawhara and Chester Witika broke into a home, ransacked it, and threatened the occupants only to walk out with $20 and two cannabis roaches. Photo / Getty Images

Three men who stormed a home looking for an associate, flipping a bed and patting down the occupants, left with just $20 and two cannabis roaches.

Tawara Wharawhara and Chester Witika were arrested and charged for their actions and a judge has now pointed out how foolish it was.

“Because $20 and two roaches gets you about three years in prison so clearly it was a stupid thing to do,” Judge Stephen Clark told them at their sentencing in the Hamilton District Court this week.

The court heard the pair, and a third defendant, went to a Matamata property on February 4 this year looking for an associate.

However, the man was not there and his younger brother, who lives with his sick mother, opened the door.

He was pushed backwards as the group burst inside and the third co-offender pressed him up against the wall before Wharawhara used his forearm to restrain him.

Because of the way Wharawhara was holding a satchel he was carrying, the victim thought he had a gun.

The victim was then asked where his brother was. He said he hadn’t lived there for some time.

The trio set about searching the living room, tipping furniture over looking for cash and drugs, and patting down the victim, before scouring the rest of the house.

As they left, they warned the victim not to call police otherwise they would return.

Fearful, he wasn’t going to call them, but his mother eventually convinced him to.

The men were sentenced in the Hamilton District Court.

In court, Wharawhara and Witika were joined by the third defendant in the case but his sentencing was then adjourned to a later date.

Wharawhara also faced an additional charge of intentional damage after climbing a fence and sitting on a pole in the middle of the Spring Hill prison compound, while he was remanded in custody for the earlier offending. He kicked two CCTV cameras, causing just over $30,000 worth of damage.

‘Not a case of youthful ignorance’

Crown solicitor Kasey Dillon told Judge Clark that Wharawhara, 22, and Witika, 21, both had relevant criminal histories and it wasn’t “a one-off or a case of youthful ignorance”.

“They went to this house to find a very specific person. They knew where he lived but he wasn’t home. That was, perhaps, the saving grace.”

The aggravated robbery was highly co-ordinated and premeditated and their criminal histories should negate any youth discount, Dillon said.

Wharawhara’s counsel, Kerry Tustin, said the prison charge resulted on a day that he’d received some upsetting news about his grandfather.

She noted he had more face tattoos than he had a month earlier and urged the judge not to issue a sentencing “too crushing”.

Wharawhara had also had a “torrid time” behind bars since causing the prison damage.

He was sent to the “pound” for 14 days, had lost all his privileges and she’d even found it difficult to contact him before sentencing.

“So he has been serving numerous punishments as a result of his activities,” she said.

Witika’s counsel, Rob Weir, argued for youth, remorse, and cultural discounts for his client, and asked the judge to accept his early guilty plea showed he was remorseful.

“He really is so young and hasn’t fully developed.

“It’s rifling through a house looking for money and drugs without any real thought.”

He said Witika was now looking healthier than before he went into prison.

‘Using crime to survive’

Judge Clark said Wharawhara’s pre-sentence report was “a bit bleak”.

“You say that everything the victim said was a lie and that you pleaded guilty to get a lesser charge.

“There’s no remorse in the report.”

However, the defendant’s cultural report was a bit more “enlightening” and revealed he had been exposed to violence and was estranged from his parents.

It talked about his not receiving a benefit and using “crime to survive”.

The judge issued 30% in discounts before arriving at an end jail term of three years and six months.

He also spoke of the Wharawhara whānau being well-known in Matamata and Waikato.

“Some come before the court, some are good sportspeople,” he said.

He urged Wharawhara to align himself with the more positive members of his whānau, “and I’m not talking the Killer Bees ... otherwise you will spend a lot of your life where you are”.

Judge Clark noted Witika was genuinely remorseful and that a report said he realised the offending “wasn’t worth it”.

However, he was believed to be an associate of the Killer Bees gang, and at his young age had racked up quite a criminal history.

Judge Clark jailed Witika for three years and two months.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.