The man who attempted to rob Richmond’s Salisbury Store last year is now on community detention and must pay the victims $500 for the emotional harm he caused.
Myles South was 19 when he walked into the store on the afternoon of 18 September last year, wearing a mask, dark glasses, and a hood to conceal his identity.
He was arrested a month later when he was recognised by two off-duty police officers while walking through Richmond Mall.
South was sentenced in the Nelson District Court last Wednesday to six months of community detention with a curfew between 8pm and 6am.
He is also subject to 12 months of intensive supervision and was ordered to pay $500 in emotional harm reparation after earlier pleading guilty to a charge of demanding to steal.
At the time, South’s long-term relationship had just broken down, he had recently been made redundant and debts were mounting.
His lawyer Kyle Simonsen said that South had lost his way and found himself in “what must have felt like the most hopeless of circumstances”.
Judge David Ruth said that the store he’d tried to rob was a family-run business and his actions had left lasting effects on the victims. The store’s owner, Thavy Men, told the Waimea Weekly that at the time she was working in the back of the shop packing bags of lollies when she saw a masked man enter the shop on the store cameras. She came out to where her son-in-law was at the front counter.
South produced a builder’s hammer and repeatedly aggressively demanded money, at one point banging the hammer down on the counter.
Thavy’s son-in-law activated the store’s fog cannon and South fled empty-handed.
In a victim impact statement, he said it was the first time he had ever experienced something of that nature, and he felt they had been robbed of their feelings and safety.
The incident had made him nervous and apprehensive around customers and he often got up through the night to check all the doors were locked, but he didn’t hold anger towards South.
“If this man has truly taken responsibility for his actions, then I don’t hold anger towards him, I have an open mind and an open heart,” the victim said.
Judge Ruth said that while no restorative justice meeting had gone ahead, interviews had been undertaken in which South came across as “very remorseful and understanding of the harm you’d caused”.
He said South’s young age, health challenges and financial matters conspired to lead him on the “very foolhardy venture”.
“Your struggles to find a solution to financial problems led you to thinking that what you did on this day would be a good solution.”
Judge Ruth told South that he was very fortunate to have such forgiving victims.
Simonsen said South was doing his best to put things right, including saving money to give to the victims, attempting to do volunteer work in the community and undertaking counselling sessions.
