Sentence for burglar mum

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A mother who claims she burgled a home to feed her family has been sentenced to 150 hours' community work.

Tamara-Rose Rawiri, 21, from Masterton, who earlier pleaded guilty to burglary was sentenced last week.

On July 5, Rawiri was walking along Fergusson St with her partner and child. She stopped outside the complainant's house and established no one was home. She entered the house and searching rooms, stole an Xbox console, 26 Xbox games, a Wii games console and a Samsung Galaxy tablet.

In explanation, Rawiri told police she stole the items to sell, to make money for her family. Defence lawyer Ian Hard said Rawiri had made a bad decision out of desperation.

"She lacked money for food, she couldn't get any other food grants from WINZ," Mr Hard said.

Rawiri had since turned her life around and had enrolled in a course. She had also written a letter of apology to the complainant but it had not yet been sent.

Mr Hard asked for a "mercifully short" sentence as Rawiri had a 3-year-old son and was pregnant.

Judge Ian Mill said Rawiri had "run out of options, apparently". He said there were signs she had got her life together since the burglary and seemed genuinely sorry for what she had done. But Judge Mill said the offending was serious and sentenced her to community work.