Youth jailed for helping to rob 95-year-old of $8

A 16-year-old with no previous criminal offending to his name has been jailed for 15 months for helping rob a 95-year-old pensioner of $8 and a bottle of milk in Flaxmere.

John Zachery Wilson was sentenced by Judge Geoff Rea in Napier District Court yesterday.

"You have your whole future ahead of you, but you're here only because you blighted the future of a 95-year-old," Judge Rea said.

The mugging on July 9, after which Wilson and an accomplice drank the milk and spent the $8 on takeaways, had robbed pensioner Elsie Jones of her independence, said Judge Rea.

She was no longer able to live alone, as she was doing at the time of the robbery, when she had walked unaided to get milk from a shop about 200 metres from her home.

Accepting Wilson deserved some credit for his previous unblemished record and his early plea of guilty, Judge Rea could not be as generous with a plea that Wilson had lacked premeditation.

"It has been said this was a spur of the moment thing," he said. "I don't accept that."

"You, and your mate, followed Mrs Jones for nigh on 200 metres," he continued. "You had plenty of time to disengage. You, effectively, stalked her."

Police summaries said that when Mrs Jones reached a pedestrian crossing near her home, Wilson and his accomplice approached her from behind, and she fell to the pavement as her bag was snatched and the offenders fled.

She was grazed and was treated in hospital for a hand injury.

The second person charged with the robbery, 18-year-old Wairoa Tatanapene Gemmell, is on remand awaiting trial, and is due to appear in Napier District Court on December 5.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY