KEY POINTS:
A Wellington man convicted of robbing ATM guards of $190,000 to fund his burgeoning motor-racing career was jailed yesterday.
Jayant Singh, 29, of Wellington, pleaded guilty in August last year to two charges of aggravated robbery and one each of aggravated burglary.
Singh confronted security guards with a gun and a knife before escaping with money canisters worth $115,000 at the Left Bank arcade, off Cuba Street, in August 2006.
He was also involved in a second ATM robbery on Victoria Street in December 2006 in which a further $75,000 was taken and a failed burglary in 2003.
Singh financed his racing car career with the proceeds from the robberies.
In Wellington District Court yesterday Judge Denys Barry sentenced Singh to six and a half years in prison with a non-parole period of three years.
He said Singh's offending was "abhorrent" and the result of an obsession with motor racing. He accepted Singh's remorse.
- NZPA
