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Courtney Habib was sentenced alongside her twin Carmen Habib in the Manukau District Court this week.
Photo: NZME / supplied
Twin sisters raised in a family of shoplifters say they were told to go out and steal their food as children because their mother spent all their money on drugs and alcohol.
Now 24, Courtney Habib said stealing is “just a way of life” for her while her identical twin Carmen Habib said she was “never happy” shoplifting with her family.
This week the twins appeared in the Manukau District Court to be sentenced, one after another, for a string of thefts from supermarkets across Auckland over five years.
Courtney stole, sometimes with her sister, other family members or associates, more than $23,000 worth of groceries from Woolworths supermarkets across Auckland. Carmen stole a total of $5600.
When she was arrested in July, Courtney spent almost a month in jail, which she said made her realise she wanted to “make a change” to set a better example for her two children, now aged two and three.
Filling up trolleys and walking out
Between 2020 and 2025, Courtney stole from 20 Auckland Woolworths supermarket locations, from Browns Bay to Pōkeno.
Carmen was involved in some of those, racking up a total of 13 shoplifting charges, while Courtney had 18.
The twins hit multiple supermarkets more than once, at times using a pram to conceal items ranging from baby formula to cosmetics to frozen meals.
On 3 August 2023, Courtney and a friend entered Woolworths Meadowlands with two reusable bags in their trolley.
Courtney placed a “large amount” of beauty products into the bags and the pair sailed through the checkout making no attempt to pay for $6622.20 worth of items.
On 24 March 2024, Courtney, her brother Brett Habib and another relative were in Woolworths Highland Park.
They filled up several trolleys with items including makeup, baby formula, cans of corned beef and boxes of soft drink. The group made many trips in and out of the supermarket as they loaded up their car.
They stole goods worth a total of $16,274.40 but the products were all recovered and returned to the store.
Her brother has already been sentenced for his role in that incident.
Woolworths was not the family’s only target, however, and on 12 November, 2023, Courtney arrived in the Westfield St Lukes carpark with four unknown others in two separate cars.
The group of five each entered Kmart St Lukes separately, filling their trolleys with a total of $2500 worth of homewares and leaving without paying.
These were some, but not all of the Habibs’ most significant shoplifting expeditions.
Taken out to steal from the age of 10
Carmen’s lawyer Kevin Lamb told the court about the twins’ upbringing.
“We’re not trying to push the emotional too much, ma’am, but this family was absolutely ravaged by alcohol and drugs.”
The defendants did not have enough food growing up as their mother spent all her money on “substances”.
The twins were told to go out and steal if they wanted to eat, he said.
Judge Frances Eivers also acknowledged how the twins’ hardship fed into their offending as adults.
“You were essentially taken out to steal from shops from the age of 10,” she said.
Courtney’s lawyer Elizabeth Gresson said shoplifting was a learned behaviour for the twins and it was their family’s “modus operandi”.
“She was encouraged throughout her childhood to enter into this form of activity,” Gresson said. “She was influenced by older family members and that included, unfortunately, her mother.”
This “form of dishonesty” became normalised, which she said made her client less at fault for her crimes.
“She simply hasn’t learned how to think in regard to that,” the lawyer said. “She makes decisions that are impaired.”
Gresson highlighted there was no evidence Courtney was stealing to on-sell products as a form of income.
A ‘reluctant participant’
Lamb claimed Carmen was a “reluctant participant” in the family’s shoplifting expeditions.
On supermarket CCTV footage of some of the thefts, he said Carmen could be seen standing to the side and looking after their children.
“Carmen was never happy doing this.”
Since the offending, Carmen had moved out of the family home with her own two children to “separate herself” from her whānau’s shoplifting ways.
Carmen was, however, no stranger to the courts and had 15 previous convictions, Judge Eivers said.
Judge Eivers said the twins’ crimes caused “significant loss” to Woolworths.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Breaking the cycle
The 26 days that Courtney was in jail after her arrest were a “turning point” for her, she told the court.
In custody for the first time, she confronted what she had done and the consequences of being separated from her children.
The judge addressed this turning point and commended Courtney for sticking to the conditions of 232 days of electronically monitored bail since being released.
“[Your children] were who you focused on and who you focused on when you were in custody,” she said.
The judge warned Courtney that if she did not change her ways her children would follow the same pattern of learned criminal behaviour.
“This is what your own children are going to do… because they don’t know any different.”
An organised family operation
Judge Eivers said the twins’ crimes caused “significant loss” to Woolworths and had a trickle-down effect impacting the wider community.
The offending was premeditated and essentially the family was a group that targeted stores in “all areas” of Auckland.
The women may not have been the main organisers but they went along with what their family did, the judge said.
She shortened the twins’ sentences for their guilty pleas, youth, background and willingness to pay back what they owed.
She also took into account the effect incarceration would have on their children.
Courtney was sentenced to seven months’ home detention and/ordered to engage in Corrections’ career and budgeting programmes.
The nearly $24,000 owed to Woolworths would take “years and years” to pay off, the judge said, so she reduced the amount to $10,000, which is to be repaid in weekly instalments.
“Which is still a lot,” Judge Eivers said.
For two charges of driving while disqualified in March and May of last year, Courtney was convicted, discharged and disqualified for six months.
Despite ‘struggles’ a close family
Judge Eivers said Carmen had the “same struggles” growing up as her twin sister.
She was sentenced to eight months’ home detention and/ordered to pay reparation of $5600 in weekly instalments.
The judge thanked the twins’ whānau for filling the court’s public gallery in support.
“I see… you are a close family despite what are difficult circumstances in the past.”
– This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald