{"id":3297,"date":"2025-09-05T07:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T07:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/3297\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T07:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T07:37:07","slug":"shoplifter-angel-sweeney-hides-stolen-loot-in-pram-takes-six-vacuums-in-two-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/3297\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoplifter Angel Sweeney hides stolen loot in pram, takes six vacuums in two weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead, she took it into account when handing down her sentence <\/a>of 12 months\u2019 supervision and one month of community detention, which included a 10pm-5am curfew.<\/p>\n

\u2018$6000 worth of vacuum cleaners stolen\u2019<\/p>\n

Sweeney and Hughes have been identified as \u201chigh-risk shoplifters\u201d by police and were living together in Hamilton at the time.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sweeney and an accomplice stole an unknown amount of groceries from Woolworths Claudelands on July 20. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The following week, they began their vacuum cleaning theft spree from Briscoes at The Base, which totalled just under $6000.<\/p>\n

They ranged in value between $799 and $1199 each, although on one occasion, they stole two, totalling $1929.77. <\/p>\n

On each occasion, the vacuum was wrapped in a blanket and put in their pram.<\/p>\n

In total, $8546 worth of items were stolen over several months.<\/p>\n

Sweeney\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

She urged that supervision be imposed and said Sweeney was keen to engage in any programmes to address her drug use. <\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s no way she was ignorant to the thefts\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo some extent it seems as though he was the person who was doing all the doing if I can put it that way,\u201d she said, \u201chowever, it wouldn\u2019t have escaped Ms Sweeney that that\u2019s exactly why they\u2019re going to these places in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly the repeated visits to Briscoes Te Rapa.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she took into account Sweeney having cognitive issues, having previously suffered a head trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no suggestion that Ms Sweeney was ignorant as to what was happening or why they were there.\u201d<\/p>\n

An issue of concern was Sweeney\u2019s addiction to meth. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is concerning to me with so many commitments and particularly children to care for that Ms Sweeney has been taking meth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a risk factor in my view both to her own offending but also the children.\u201d<\/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":"Instead, she took it into account when handing down her sentence of 12 months\u2019 supervision and one month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4734,4749,4747,3011,4745,4735,4748,78,4737,3234,111,139,69,1523,4738,4733,4742,4739,213,4743,4744,4736,1742,1120,2846,1237,4746,4740,4518,2201,4741],"class_list":["post-3297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-angel","tag-childrens","tag-cleaners","tag-four","tag-groceries","tag-hides","tag-hiding","tag-in","tag-loot","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pram","tag-shoplifter","tag-shoplifting","tag-six","tag-sports","tag-spree","tag-stealing","tag-stolen","tag-sweeney","tag-takes","tag-them","tag-two","tag-vacuum","tag-vacuums","tag-weeks","tag-went","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297","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=3297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}