Instead, she took it into account when handing down her sentence of 12 months’ supervision and one month of community detention, which included a 10pm-5am curfew.
‘$6000 worth of vacuum cleaners stolen’
Sweeney and Hughes have been identified as “high-risk shoplifters” by police and were living together in Hamilton at the time.
Sweeney and a different accomplice first struck Briscoes in May last year. They grabbed a trolley, filled it, and left without paying for the items worth $1037.27.
Sweeney and an accomplice stole an unknown amount of groceries from Woolworths Claudelands on July 20.
On September 5, Sweeney and Hughes went to Mitre 10 Mega Ruakura. Hughes broke into a locked cabinet, took a security camera kit worth $1199, and concealed it in their pram.
Two days later, they went to Woolworths Claudelands and put $379 worth of groceries in a basket before transferring them into a bag and pram and leaving.
The following week, they began their vacuum cleaning theft spree from Briscoes at The Base, which totalled just under $6000.
They ranged in value between $799 and $1199 each, although on one occasion, they stole two, totalling $1929.77.
On each occasion, the vacuum was wrapped in a blanket and put in their pram.
In total, $8546 worth of items were stolen over several months.
Sweeney’s counsel Rebecca Senar said her client came to court with a very limited criminal history, and now lived with her mother and four children, the youngest of whom was 3 months old.
She urged that supervision be imposed and said Sweeney was keen to engage in any programmes to address her drug use.
‘There’s no way she was ignorant to the thefts’
Judge Clark noted in her pre-sentence report that Sweeney said she was under the influence of meth at the time, and shifted the blame for the offending on to Hughes.
“To some extent it seems as though he was the person who was doing all the doing if I can put it that way,” she said, “however, it wouldn’t have escaped Ms Sweeney that that’s exactly why they’re going to these places in the first place.”
“Particularly the repeated visits to Briscoes Te Rapa.”
However, she took into account Sweeney having cognitive issues, having previously suffered a head trauma.
“There’s no suggestion that Ms Sweeney was ignorant as to what was happening or why they were there.”
An issue of concern was Sweeney’s addiction to meth.
“It is concerning to me with so many commitments and particularly children to care for that Ms Sweeney has been taking meth.
“That is a risk factor in my view both to her own offending but also the children.”
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.