Walkley, with his son-in-law Solo Turner and a 14-year-old, pulled into Grove Place, a cul-de-sac near the Dinsdale Shopping Centre.
The trio then walked to the Lucky Dairy wearing disguises. Walkley was armed with a Glock-style firearm, Turner with a baseball bat and the teen was carrying bags.
Once inside, Walkley raised the gun and pointed it at the staff.
He kept it trained on them as Turner jumped the counter and began to fill a bag he was holding with cigarettes.
The younger person also joined in filling up his bag.
The store’s fog cannon was activated and the three fled on foot towards their car on Grove Place.
A member of the public who witnessed the incident chased them and confronted Walkley as he was getting in the car.
He responded by firing two shots in his direction. No one was struck.
Some $19,326.09 worth of cigarettes were stolen.
Walkley initially denied being involved in the robbery but said he knew who was.
In March, Turner was jailed for five years and five months for his part in this armed robbery and four others across Hamilton in five months.
‘The perceived danger was high’
Crown prosecutor Lexie Glaser initially proposed an eight-year jail term as a starting point, but dropped that to seven years as the gun was deemed to be a BB gun.
However, she submitted the perceived danger by the victims was still high.
A Crown prosecutor said Rawiri Walkey (centre) should get a 10% sentence discount for engaging with the ManUp programme. Photo / Facebook
“Yes,” the judge agreed. “If you were on the receiving end of it, you wouldn’t know any difference.”
She accepted that Walkley, like Turner, had engaged with the ManUp programme and said he should get a 10% discount for that work, along with another 5% for his upbringing.
‘He wants to pay these people back’
His counsel Nadine Baier said the offending wasn’t overly sophisticated but accepted there was a small amount of premeditation, with their adoption of disguises and weapons.
There was a dairy targeted but the monetary value was not overly high, she said.
She pushed for a 15% discount for his plea, 15% for his rehabilitative work, which had led to him relocating to another town, and 5% for remorse.
He’d also offered to pay his share of the reparation.
“He wants to pay these people back and I’m sure he intends to do that once he is released,” she said.
“I don’t think he will go back on that promise. He is genuinely remorseful.”
‘I ran out of meth’
Walkley had told a pre-sentence report writer that he’d organised the robbery because he had run out of meth and he knew Turner had committed similar robberies before.
He was now a member of Destiny Church and had joined the ManUp programme.
The judge also took into consideration that his 11-year-old daughter was killed in a car crash in Kaikohe two months ago and another child was left seriously hurt.
The fact he was armed with an imitation firearm was still serious and the victims had been left traumatised.
The shop owner said he was unsure if Walkley was going to harm his wife that day and it had been hard since then to focus on running the business.
Meanwhile, the man’s wife said she was still in shock from what happened and no longer liked to work late.
Judge Clark said Hamilton “seems to have more than its fair share” of armed robberies.
“We are sentencing people every week,” he said.
“It might have been something that happened quickly, but there have been ongoing impacts.”
After taking a six-and-a-half-year starting point and applying various discounts, he jailed Walkley for four years and two months.
Judge Clark also ordered him to pay his share of the reparation, $6442.03.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.