Supervision for teens in armed hold-up

by Sandra Conchie | 9th February 2010

Two youths who earlier admitted their roles in the armed hold-up of Cherrywood Liquor in October have been sentenced to supervision and community work and ordered to each make a $1000 emotional harm payment to their victim.

The 16-year-olds from Matamata, who have automatic name suppression, were sentenced in Tauranga Youth Court yesterday by Judge Christopher Harding.

Youth advocates Craig Horsley and MaryAnn McCarty told the judge that the police and the Crown accepted that the teens had played secondary roles in the hold-up, and it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. They were urged on by their adult co-offender Shay Myers, 18, of Tauranga.

Myers held the rifle at the head of the liquor store's duty manager, Nitin Kumar, during the October 6 hold-up, while one of the two youths grabbed two boxes of beer from the chiller. The trio fled in a car driven by the other youth.

Read more in today's Bay of Plenty Times