{"id":32098,"date":"2025-09-19T20:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T20:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32098\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T20:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T20:52:08","slug":"hamilton-recidivist-thief-cole-jenkins-sentenced-for-25000-crime-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32098\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton recidivist thief Cole Jenkins sentenced for $25,000 crime spree"},"content":{"rendered":"

His counsel, Rob Quin, said an electronically monitored sentence was never going to be sought, and sentencing was simply about whether there would be any more discounts after he accepted a sentence indication<\/a> back in July.<\/p>\n

Jenkins, of Hamilton, now wanted to turn his life around and quit his thieving. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe has had some time in custody to clear his head,\u201d Quin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like he\u2019s reconnected with family and sounds like he\u2019s in a much better position than when I first met him earlier this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins\u2019 crime spree<\/p>\n

Two of the 40 charges were for burglaries from December last year.<\/p>\n

One at Stihl Morrinsville when he walked into a workshop and took an AEG battery grinder and $1500 battery pack from a van and left.<\/p>\n

He then stole more pools from Novus Glass later that month.<\/p>\n

The rest of his thefts occurred between August and February this year.<\/p>\n

He stole $2345 worth of chainsaws from Stihl, and just under $4000 worth of sunglasses from Sunglass Hut in Newmarket.<\/p>\n

Jenkins stole a $1500 e-scooter from The Warehouse Hillcrest and a $1200 vacuum cleaner from Briscoes.<\/p>\n

He also stole thousands of dollars worth of power tools from Mitre 10, boots from Footloose in Cambridge, perfume worth $788 from a pharmacy in Cambridge, a hedge trimmer, clothing, speakers from Noel Leeming, and more than $2000 worth of groceries from Woolworths St James and Rototuna.<\/p>\n

\"MitreMitre 10 has trespassed Hamilton man Cole Jenkins after he repeatedly stole from the store. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

At his sentencing, the judge said she wasn\u2019t surprised Mitre 10 had trespassed Jenkins.<\/p>\n

She labelled his offending as \u201crepetitive and planned\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou clearly knew where you were going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe value [stolen] is at least $25,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said he could not afford to pay any reparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went through what it is that you stole because you are so indiscriminate as to the nature of the items and property that you took.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me to learn that you have 50 previous dishonesty convictions since you were first convicted of burglary in 2001.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins penned his own cultural report for the judge, outlining his exposure to violence as a youngster and why he turned to alcohol and drugs.<\/p>\n

However, she noted that he had gained some work skills during his life and was the head of painting at Spring Hill Prison.<\/p>\n

She gave him 5% credit for the work he had done trying to rehabilitate himself before jailing him for 20 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":"His counsel, Rob Quin, said an electronically monitored sentence was never going to be sought, and sentencing was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8990,30591,6147,2082,6288,9846,111,43,139,69,19429,5161,4743,30590],"class_list":{"0":"post-32098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-8990","9":"tag-cole","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-for","12":"tag-hamilton","13":"tag-jenkins","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-recidivist","19":"tag-sentenced","20":"tag-spree","21":"tag-thief"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32098","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=32098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}