{"id":167548,"date":"2025-12-04T10:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/167548\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:34:19","slug":"hamilton-armed-robber-hone-daniels-claimed-he-was-doing-his-laundry-not-robbing-a-pub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/167548\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton armed robber Hone Daniels claimed he was doing his laundry, not robbing a pub"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOf course, that was rejected by the jury, and equally, I found it more entertaining than anything that type of defence was being run,\u201d Judge Tini Clark told him in the Hamilton District Court<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I say, ingenious, but ineffectual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniels was the only one of the three involved to be convicted of the aggravated robbery. <\/p>\n

\u2018A very well planned robbery\u2019<\/p>\n

The court heard that on the evening of December 14, 2022, three people, including Daniels, entered The Riv Sports Bar through a back entrance.<\/p>\n

One was carrying a pistol, which was used to force the female staff member to open the bar\u2019s safe.<\/p>\n

At the time, the bar was open, and there were patrons inside.<\/p>\n

The staff member was held at gunpoint until she gathered a large sum of money, around $10,000, the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my recollection, this was a very well planned event and it\u2019s important that I point that out because in essence, there was no ability to connect, forensically, the individuals, so successful was their disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n

That disguise included masks and gloves.<\/p>\n

However, Daniels was on electronically monitored bail at the time, and, while he had an \u201cingenious\u201d defence, the jury didn\u2019t fall for it.<\/p>\n

\"HoneHone Daniels was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court.<\/p>\n

Daniels, through his counsel, told the jury that he was travelling in a different vehicle but just happened to be in the bar\u2019s car park at the time of the robbery as he and a friend had been at the nearby laundromat.<\/p>\n

It was also a coincidence that after the robbery, the same vehicle travelled to a Sapphire Pl property.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark said she had \u201cno difficulty\u201d accepting the jury\u2019s guilty verdict on a charge of aggravated robbery.<\/p>\n

\u2018He wants to turn his life around\u2019<\/p>\n

While pointing out there was minimal violence used in the robbery, defence counsel Melissa James said she wasn\u2019t trying to minimise her client\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

However, Judge Clark was quick to point out that there \u201cdidn\u2019t need to be a huge amount of direct violence because they had a gun\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"AroundAround $10,000 was taken from the bar during the robbery. Photo \/ Belinda Feek<\/p>\n

As for discounts, James pushed for 10 to 15% for her client\u2019s background, including the death of his mother at a young age.<\/p>\n

It was from then, she said, that Daniels\u2019 life began changing and he began \u201cgetting closer to those who have an anti-social mindset\u201d.<\/p>\n

He joined a gang when he was about 19 and then began \u201cmaking regular appearances in court and incarceration\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Judge Clark noted that at least up until his mother died, his upbringing seemed \u201cpretty standard\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even then, he went on to get a sports and fitness certificate before gaining work.<\/p>\n

James submitted that Daniels no longer wanted to keep coming to court, and had recently completed a rehabilitative course while on remand.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing has really slowed down his offending behaviour over the years,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

She found that between being found guilty in February and Daniels\u2019 sentencing, he had not made any marked changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe has been off the rails for most of his adult life, so why would I have faith at this juncture that there is some significant change that I can recognise? <\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at his previous [history] … it\u2019s mostly about dishonesty and taking things that don\u2019t belong to him. Nothing has really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This has upended the victim\u2019s life\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Clark noted the armed robbery was now Daniels\u2019 most serious conviction.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Daniels does need to take responsibility for the way that he has chosen to live his life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As for the victim, the judge noted the incident had \u201cboth a short-term and long-term effect on her\u201d.<\/p>\n

She quit her job at the bar as she no longer felt safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really upended her life,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark took a starting point of six years and six months, and, after applying discounts for Daniels\u2019 upbringing and rehabilitative efforts, she jailed him for five years and 10 months.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOf course, that was rejected by the jury, and equally, I found it more entertaining than anything that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7814,23552,62245,31787,6288,692,293,15977,49004,111,43,139,5006,69,40123,19430,98318,6736],"class_list":["post-167548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-armed","tag-claimed","tag-daniels","tag-doing","tag-hamilton","tag-he","tag-his","tag-hone","tag-laundry","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-pub","tag-robber","tag-robbing","tag-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}