A young mother wept as she described the devasting effect the theft of her car and brief-but-traumatic abduction of her child has had on her.
The 24-year-old had recently moved to Taranaki after losing everything she owned in a house fire. All she had left was her car. She lost that, too, when Michael Jai Smith stole it from outside a dairy.
But the most painful part of the incident was watching him drive away with her infant son asleep in the back of the vehicle.
“I felt like my whole life was over when I saw Michael drive away with my baby in the car,” Crown prosecutor Jo Woodcock told the court on the woman’s behalf. She took over reading the victim impact statement when the woman was overcome with emotion.
“Nothing felt real. I felt that I had really messed up and I would never see [my son] again. In my heart, I thought he would die.”
She spoke about how her body “malfunctioned” — suffering a seizure — when she found her son on the roadside, where Smith had dumped him.
“My baby was on the side of the road. I can’t believe that he would do that to me, or that he would do that to anyone.”
Smith appeared in New Plymouth District Court today, for sentencing on 21 charges, including abduction, racked up during seven days on the run across two regions.
There were at least 10 victims affected by his offending. None will receive any money from Smith to cover what he stole and the damage he caused. He does not have a cent to his name.
Smith was already serving a sentence of home detention when he began the crime spree, stealing multiple vehicles, burgling homes and clubs, and putting motorists’ lives at risk as he dangerously negotiated public roads.
Smith proved so elusive police had to call on the public for help to track him down. Details on his time as a fugitive can be read here.
He sat stoney-faced for the hour-long sentencing. Smith responded to the four-year prison term handed down by Judge Tony Greig by yelling: “f*** you and f*** the police”.
Smith’s crime spree began on May 10, when he was given an hour of approved leave from home detention to go to the shop.
But at the High Street Dairy in Waitara, he came across the woman’s unattended car, unlocked and still running.
He did not see her six-month-old sleeping baby, strapped in a car seat in the back.
Smith jumped in the car and as he reversed away, the woman, who had stopped to buy a drink, left the shop and ran to the vehicle, banging her fists on the window and trying to open the door as she repeatedly shouted that her child was in the backseat.
But Smith slammed the car into drive, causing her to fall onto the road, and drove off.
The mother, who was left with bruising on her leg and a possible broken toe, chased the vehicle on foot.
Up the road, Smith stopped the car and tried to remove the baby but struggled to release the straps of the seat.
He got back in and continued to drive before pulling up outside Anzco Foods Waitara, about 600 metres from the dairy. Smith took the baby from the seat and put him on the grass verge outside the meatworks, close to the roadside. The moment was captured on CCTV and shared online.
He then sped off.
Meanwhile, the baby’s mother had been picked up by a member of the public and arrived shortly after to find her baby screaming. She suffered a seizure as they were reunited.
Smith threw the woman’s iPhone out the window as he made his way out of town in her car.
Around that time, he phoned his mother and she urged him to hand himself in. But by then he was under the influence of methamphetamine and marijuana.
Smith knew he would be going to prison for a lengthy period so he decided to try to stay in the community, on the run, for as long as possible.
At sentencing, Judge Greig said all of the victims had suffered emotional and financial losses as a result of the offending. One of the victims labelled Smith as a rat and gutless.
The victim hit the hardest however was the woman, who was now battling depression and anxiety.
While her car, which was not insured, has now been returned to her, it is not in a driveable state.
Smith had also destroyed the interior, painted over the mag wheels, and disposed of all her personal items in the vehicle, including a baby buggy, car seats, and baby clothes. The woman said it would take her years to recover financially.
“It was all she owned in the world and you took it and you wrecked it,” Judge Greig said.
Smith has a criminal history dating back to 2006, which includes drug offending, violence, dishonesty, burglary and various breaches.
“All you’ve done all your life is steal and hurt the community. Eighteen years so far [of offending] and you don’t have one cent to your name.
“And you hurt all of these people to a greater or lesser degree because you just prefer to get high.”
A pre-sentence report said Smith had ADHD, which would not cause him a problem if he took his medication.
“You not only don’t take your medication but you do take other drugs, which leads you to behave the way you behave.”
The report stated in the lead-up to the crime spree, Smith’s relationship collapsed and he was on edge.
He took the car to get away from “all the drama his ex had caused”, Judge Greig said, referring to the report.
Smith told the report writer it was not his intention to take the infant and when he saw him in the backseat, he knew he had “stuffed up”.
The judge accepted he did not know the boy was in the car when he took it but said he would have known soon after because the woman was banging on the windows.
Smith said he was sorry for the harm he had caused her but the report writer said the language he used showed he only took partial responsibility. He had blamed the woman for leaving her baby inside a running, unlocked vehicle.
Judge Greig also disqualified Smith from driving for two years and six months, which will not begin until April 2028, when his other disqualification period concludes, and remitted $1752 in fines.
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.
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