{"id":42193,"date":"2025-09-25T07:11:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42193\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T07:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:11:06","slug":"judge-jails-serial-thief-tessa-heta-after-nine-month-crime-spree-across-nelson-tasman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42193\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge jails serial thief Tessa Heta after nine-month crime spree across Nelson-Tasman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 36-year-old was sentenced in the Nelson District Court<\/a> this week to just over a year in prison on 32 dishonesty charges collected over the course of a nine-month crime spree; 12 were for petrol drive-offs.<\/p>\n

Between last October and this July, Heta, also known as Tessa Croft, stole $5086 worth of items from supermarkets and retail stores, plus petrol from various service stations where she drove off without paying.<\/p>\n

Her preferred items were clothing, jewellery, meat and fuel<\/a> but there was also a power tool from Mitre 10 and sanding disks from Bunnings, the 25-page police summary of facts showed. <\/p>\n

\"SerialSerial shoplifter Tessa Heta has been sentenced in the Nelson District Court to just over a year in prison. Most of the offending happened while she was on bail. Photo \/ Tracy Neal<\/p>\n

Judge Tony Snell said during sentencing that 14 of the charges related to the theft of groceries and goods, 12 were for petrol drive-offs, two were drink-drive matters, one for being an unlicensed driver and the remainder for using a document for a pecuniary advantage.<\/p>\n

The first tranche of offending was in October last year, when Heta and an associate took $327 worth of clothing and jewellery from The Warehouse in Nelson.<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite a warning from the court to stop, her latest offending, while on bail in July this year, involved a spree at supermarkets in Motueka<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Judge Snell said that because of what he described as her \u201cunrelenting offending\u201d, she ended up in custody.<\/p>\n

She was also sentenced on driving charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old had been forbidden to drive in 2018 until she got a proper licence.<\/p>\n

Early on March 1 this year, a vehicle was pulled over by the police in central Nelson. The two people in the car, including Heta, appeared drunk.<\/p>\n

The driver was taken to the police station for screening but a few hours later, the same vehicle was seen on CCTV parking outside the police station.<\/p>\n

They found Heta at the wheel, at three times the limit with a breath alcohol reading of 758 mcg of alcohol per litre of breath.<\/p>\n

Early on June 1 this year, Heta was driving through central Nelson on her way to Tapawera, 58km away, and was waved down by the police<\/a> because her headlights were off.<\/p>\n

She was found close to three times the legal limit with a blood alcohol reading of 136mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said in sentencing Heta, that one theft in particular had \u201cseriously inconvenienced\u201d the victim.<\/p>\n

Heta was a passenger in a car that by chance, passed a cafe where two women had been seated outside, but left behind a bag when they moved indoors.<\/p>\n

It contained an iPhone, various credit and debit cards plus cash and other items.<\/p>\n

Heta got out of the vehicle and picked up the bag, removed the cash and cards then dumped it in a toilet block in Nelson\u2019s Buxton Square carpark.<\/p>\n

The spending spree she then went on, including $683 worth of Prezzy cards in multiple transactions.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said it was pointless ordering her to pay full reparation because she had little scope of being able to pay it, and any order would be a debt trap.<\/p>\n

A small amount had been repaid, Heta\u2019s lawyer Ian Miller said.<\/p>\n

Heta claimed that most of her offending was driven by \u201cpressure and intimidation\u201d by a former partner, and that being in custody had allowed her to be alcohol-free and to come to regret the offending.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell reminded Heta that shoplifting<\/a> was not a victimless crime, and that \u201ceveryone paid\u201d through price increases that retailers needed to impose to cover losses caused by \u201cpeople like you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Heta was given discounts at sentencing for her guilty pleas and her personal circumstances, landing her an end sentence of 12.5 months in prison.<\/p>\n

She was granted leave to apply for home detention, if a suitable address could be found, including at residential rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

Because she had served time in custody, Heta would be eligible for release in just over two months.<\/p>\n

She was also disqualified from driving for eight months, and convicted and discharged on the charge of driving while forbidden.<\/p>\n

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ\u2019s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 36-year-old was sentenced in the Nelson District Court this week to just over a year in prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37780,2840,74,10635,6147,2678,42,1331,6132,27343,3958,37778,43,37777,22126,21413,4733,4743,37776,30590,40,38,41,39,13920,37779,4576,19985],"class_list":["post-42193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-37780","tag-across","tag-after","tag-card","tag-crime","tag-fuel","tag-headlines","tag-heta","tag-income","tag-jails","tag-judge","tag-nelsontasman","tag-news","tag-ninemonth","tag-petrol","tag-serial","tag-shoplifter","tag-spree","tag-tessa","tag-thief","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tried","tag-unrelenting","tag-work","tag-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42193","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=42193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}