{"id":588723,"date":"2026-09-03T08:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588723\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T08:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:40:12","slug":"prolific-burglar-miles-simon-raids-home-as-resident-gardens-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588723\/","title":{"rendered":"Prolific burglar Miles Simon raids home as resident gardens outside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Stephen Clark told the court burglaries<\/a> occurring at night used to be deemed more serious, but with people working from home or retired that was not now the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a burglary in the morning and there was an occupant home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles also took an iPhone from the seat of an unoccupied post delivery cart on February 2.<\/p>\n

The phone contained a wallet with the victim\u2019s bank cards and driver\u2019s licence.<\/p>\n

Within 20 minutes, he began a $682.16 shopping spree at three stores on Te Rapa Rd.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark said the victim was upset and emotional about what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe referred to literally watching his money disappear before his eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon, who sat with his head bowed in the dock, had earlier accepted a sentence indication from Judge Clark of 32 months in prison.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Haley Gane, asked for further credits of 25% for plea, 5% for a remorse letter he\u2019d written and 10% for his alcohol and drug issues.<\/p>\n

Despite his history, Gane said Simon was now in \u201cthe preparation stage of change\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last chance of him to get off that wheel of reoffending is with the Grace Foundation,\u201d she told the judge.<\/p>\n

However, Judge Clark said his pre-sentence report wasn\u2019t as enthusiastic about granting him home detention, enabling him to go to the foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI somewhat disagree with that just because Mr Simon is very willing to make changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s 50 years old. He\u2019s told me he\u2019s over this type of lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s sent to prison he will … just go back to what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge pointed out his abysmal history of burglaries, and Simon was at one point accepted into the drug and alcohol court.<\/p>\n

Gane said he left the facility because of an assault. <\/p>\n

Police sought reparation for the victims, but Gane said considering he was in prison, \u201cI don\u2019t believe he\u2019s in any position to make reparation at this stage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark told Simon his pre-sentence report made for \u201cgrim\u201d reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt talks about your long history of offending, spanning [adult life]. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re at very high risk of reoffending, so much so, you\u2019re not eligible for departmental programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles had previously been declined entry into Salvation Army and Tai Aroha programmes because of his risk level and poor compliance, and only lasted a couple of weeks in the alcohol and drug court.<\/p>\n

Simon had a \u201clong standing\u201d poly-substance issue, had experienced homelessness and \u201csignificant adversity\u201d over the years.<\/p>\n

He was in remission for his meth substance use disorder because he was in prison.<\/p>\n

Miles penned a letter of apology, which the judge said was \u201cwell-written\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern is, Mr Simon, you say all the right things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not denigrating that at all but you have been coming before the court consistently most of your adult life and I do wonder how many of these remorse letters you have written.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect it\u2019s quite a few.\u201d<\/p>\n

He declined to grant him home detention and instead jailed him for 19 months.<\/p>\n

However, the judge directed that he could be released to the Grace Foundation upon release.<\/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":"Judge Stephen Clark told the court burglaries occurring at night used to be deemed more serious, but with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[806,45662,30407,1345,83727,111,139,69,14727,57390,37058,10710,6037,213],"class_list":["post-588723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-as","tag-burglar","tag-gardens","tag-home","tag-miles","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outside","tag-prolific","tag-raids","tag-resident","tag-simon","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588723","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=588723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}