{"id":562661,"date":"2026-08-08T09:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562661\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:22:09","slug":"hamilton-armed-robbers-found-sleeping-on-mattress-in-garage-after-targeting-four-square-for-vapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562661\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton armed robbers found sleeping on mattress in garage after targeting Four Square for vapes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bint recently appeared in the Hamilton District Court<\/a> for sentencing on charges of aggravated robbery, motor vehicle conversion, theft of a motor vehicle, breaching release conditions, and two charges of failing to attend court.<\/p>\n

Court documents state that two cars were stolen from around Hamilton for the robbery \u2013 one from York St, the other from Silverdale Rd \u2013 during Waitangi weekend this year.<\/p>\n

At 7.27am on February 6, Bint and two others arrived at the Four Square in Cambridge in a white Toyota Aqua.<\/p>\n

Two staff members were working; one was stacking shelves and the other was in the kitchen near the till.<\/p>\n

The trio, all wearing disguises, ran in, with Bint\u2019s associates jumping over the counter.<\/p>\n

After the staff member locked herself in the kitchen, the associates emptied the cigarette cupboard and passed the stolen items to Bint.<\/p>\n

All three fled the store and drove to Epping Place in Hamilton, where they dumped the car.<\/p>\n

They then jumped into the second car before dumping it in Rachel Place.<\/p>\n

Police then received information that the trio had been seen entering a property in Duke St, Hamilton.<\/p>\n

There, the defendants were found asleep on a mattress in a garage, two of them still wearing clothing matching that seen during the robbery.<\/p>\n

A Nike backpack also contained some of the stolen lighters and vapes.<\/p>\n

Bint had earlier accepted a sentence indication from Judge Philip Crayton, who adopted an overall starting point of four years and seven months, before applying discounts for Bint\u2019s guilty plea and youth.<\/p>\n

The judge then took into account Bint\u2019s criminal history, which included violence and firearm offending.<\/p>\n

He also noted Bint\u2019s drug addiction, which he said was \u201cplainly entrenched\u201d in that history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is going to be important that you take steps to try and address that [addiction], otherwise you are just going to be back before the court getting longer and longer sentences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton issued Bint a first strike under the Three Strikes legislation, and a firearms prohibition order, \u201cdue to the risk you pose to public safety\u201d.<\/p>\n

He jailed Bint for two years and 11 months.<\/p>\n

The co-offenders are being dealt with in the Youth Court on the matter.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bint recently appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on charges of aggravated robbery, motor vehicle conversion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,7814,2082,1874,3011,45565,6288,78,31048,111,43,139,69,90,74756,27250,10505,17902,24665],"class_list":["post-562661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-armed","tag-for","tag-found","tag-four","tag-garage","tag-hamilton","tag-in","tag-mattress","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-robbers","tag-sleeping","tag-square","tag-targeting","tag-vapes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562661","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=562661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}