Burglar jailed after selling nan’s things
A recidivist burglar who sold all his grandmother’s belongings to secondhand dealers while she was on holiday has been jailed.
Tony Charles Robertson appeared before Judge John Brandts-Giesen in the Invercargill District Court yesterday.
He had earlier admitted two charges of burglary, unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, possessing a psychoactive product, and three charges of breaching his release conditions.
Robertson’s lawyer, Katy Barker, told the court Robertson’s offending had been ‘‘quite awful’’ because it was committed against his grandmother.
Robertson’s conviction history included more than 30 burglaries, but this was the first time he had acknowledged his offending was related to a drug habit, Barker said.
It was accepted Robertson would be sentenced to jail, but he had genuine remorse for his offending, and hoped to be able to attend residential rehabilitation after he was released, she said.
The judge said Robertson had begun living with his grandmother because he had nowhere else to stay. When she decided to go on holiday for a few weeks, she asked Robertson to stay elsewhere until she returned.
But two days after she left, Rob- ertson used keys he had secretly taken from her to access her home, and over three weeks sold many of her possessions to secondhand dealers, the judge said.
He then arranged for a secondhand dealer to sell the remainder of the home’s contents, while Robertson stole her car and sold it.
‘‘You stole virtually everything your grandmother had ... it was the lowest of the low.’’
Neither Robertson nor his grandmother could afford to replace what was taken, the judge said.
‘‘This was the stripping of all her possessions ... she cannot rebuild what she has lost.
‘‘I call it treachery in that you took so much of what she had ... you were exploitative of your grandmother ... you abused her affection for you,’’ he said.
The judge took Robertson’s ‘‘enormously long list’’ of previous convictions for burglary into account when sentencing him to 22 months’ jail, and also ordered he pay $575 reparation to various secondhand dealers.