Dad blames addiction for robbery
Judge notes father’s remorse over heist for which he recruited his 17-year-old son
For 10 years, Julian Gerrard Brown had managed to keep his demons in check. But when a workplace injury resulted in a doctor’s prescription for powerful opiate oxycodone, the now 47-year-old West Auckland resident didn’t just fall off the wagon. He plummeted back down a “rabbit hole” of meth addiction and crime that ended with a shameful rock bottom: his 2022 arrest for an armed jewellery store robbery alongside his 17-yearold son, whom he had recruited to assist with the poorly planned heist.
Brown expressed his shame and regret this week as he appeared in Auckland District Court for sentencing, asking for a term of home detention similar to that given to his now 19-year-old son earlier this year.
But the father had more to account for than the son, Judge Anna Skellern said as she instead ordered a sentence of imprisonment.
“You were clearly in charge of the plan,” she told Brown, referring to his influence as a father and his son’s age.
Court documents state Brown and his son, Savahn Kake, targeted Brownsons Jewellers in Meadowbank Shopping Centre, St Johns on July 13, 2022, at a time when the centre would have been bustling with customers on their lunch break.
They pulled on balaclavas and Brown pulled an imitation doublebarrelled firearm out of a bag.
He shouted and swore as he pointed the imitation firearm at the store manager’s face, while his son smashed at least four glass display cabinets with a hammer and shovelled the high-value contents into a shopping bag, according to the agreed summary of facts.
A 73-year-old bystander tried to thwart the duo’s efforts by pushing a wooden bench in front of the exit.
“Mr Brown noticed and moved closer to [the woman] and pointed the imitation firearm at her,” documents state.
“I’ll f***ing shoot you!” he told her. The pair pushed aside the bench and ran through the shopping centre, pushing another bystander to the ground. “Stay still or I will f***ing shoot you!” Brown told other members of the public.
He pointed the gun a final time after a witness followed them out of the store, where they crossed St Johns Rd to their waiting vehicle. At that point unmasked, they turned around after dropping an item and noticed him. “I’ll shoot,” Brown said to the man about three times before they drove away.
Roughly $60,000 worth of merchandise was taken though most was dropped near the scene or recovered after the pair’s arrest. But Brown and his son caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to the business.
Police announced Brown’s arrest the next day.
At this week’s sentencing, defence lawyer Jane-Frances O’Halloran asked the judge to take into consideration her client’s hard luck story prior to the incident and what she described as his “significant, wholehearted” efforts to get back on the wagon since the arrest.
“The offending was a one-off incident influenced by . . . methamphetamine addiction,” O’Halloran said. “Mr Brown had really turned his life around for quite a significant period of time.”
But a legally prescribed opioid for a workplace injury served as a “trigger” when it was suddenly cut off, she said.
“But for that injury, Mr Brown would not be in this situation,” O’Halloran said.
“He fell back down that rabbit hole of methamphetamine use.”
Within five months, he was using the drug on a daily basis again, the court was told.
O’Halloran described her client turning to his son in a desperate effort to feed his addiction as “a matter of significant remorse for him”.
He had attended two residential treatment facilities and other counselling programmes. Brown even put off pleading guilty, knowingly risking missing out on a sentence discount, because he was so adamant about continuing his treatment, she said.
She emphasised that the robbery did not involve a lethal weapon and the hammer was used only as a tool — not to threaten others.
But Crown prosecutor Sophie Vreeburg said the discovery that the gun wasn’t real would have provided little comfort at the time to the victims who were made to believe their lives were in danger. She argued for a sentence of imprisonment, noting that it was a pre-meditated victimisation of a small business at a busy time of the day when it would have been obvious to Brown that there was a strong potential for terrorising others.
Judge Skellern agreed that the impact of the gun on the victims — regardless of whether it was real — had a significant impact. People may react in ways that are dangerous to themselves if they think their lives are at risk, she explained.
“The staff were seriously traumatised by what happened,” the judge added, referring to a written victim impact statement prepared for his son’s sentencing.
She noted that Brown had 79 previous convictions as an adult offender, but was able to kick drugs and alcohol in 2010 followed by a 12-year offencefree period of his life.
Since the arrest, his efforts to address his addiction have made him “clearly well-regarded” in the recovery community, the judge said, noting that he was joined in the courtroom by supporters from one of the residential rehabilitation programmes.
“I am willing to accept there is some real remorse from you,” Skellern said.
But denunciation and deterrence were “very important” for such offending, she said, ordering a sentence of three years and one month’s imprisonment.
Aggravated robbery carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. The other charge Brown pleaded guilty to, presenting a firearm or restricted weapon at a person, is punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment.
Brown’s son’s case started in Youth Court but was later transferred to the District Court. A judge declined his petition for permanent name suppression, noting the seriousness of the crime and the public’s interest in the outcome of such cases.