No jail over $15,000 robbery | Northland News | Local News in Northland

A 21-year-old woman who appeared for sentencing over a $15,000 robbery was handed 350 hours' community work and 12 months' supervision - because she committed the crime when she was 14.

She was arrested six years after robbing nearly $15,000 from a Whangarei fast food outlet.

Amber Ruth Waerehu was 14 when she took part in the aggravated robbery of KFC on Bank St on April 12, 2003.

 DNA evidence led to police finally nabbing her in Auckland, where she currently lives, last October.

She was subsequently charged with aggravated robbery, to which she pleaded guilty in the Whangarei District Court on November 6, 2009.

Her case left Judge Duncan Harvey in a difficult position during sentencing in  the Whangarei District Court yesterday,  as neither he nor the Crown or defence lawyers could find a similar case.

He  had to decide whether Waerehu should be sentenced as a juvenile or an adult,  as she committed the offence as a 14-year-old.

The summary of facts stated that about 7am on April 12, 2003, Waerehu concealed her face with a pair of women's swimming togs and her co-offender wore a brown paper bag over her head before going to KFC.

They threatened a female staff member, stole $14,500 from a safe before tying up and putting the  employee in a toilet cubicle.

Possible saliva  found on the togs was sent to ESR for analysis and the conclusion was that the DNA was eight hundred  billion times more likely to be Waerehu's than anybody else's.

Crown prosecutor Anna Patterson  submitted that Waerehu should be treated as an adult because charges were laid properly and that she appeared in court as a 21-year-old. She said the end sentence had to be such that it provided a rehabilitative measure as well as marked the seriousness of the offence.

She asked the court to fix a starting point - as usually happened in similar cases - before making appropriate allowance for her age at the time of the offence and guilty plea.

But defence lawyer Dave Sayes argued that community work was appropriate because had she appeared in the Youth Court in 2003 or 2004, a non-custodial sentence would have been the only realistic outcome in that court's jurisdiction.

He said for the Crown to justify a significant term of imprisonment on a 14-year-old offender due to nothing other than the passage of time since the robbery, was wrong.

Waerehu was pregnant and if sent to jail, her rehabilitation would be at risk as she would come in contact with experienced prisoners, Mr Sayes said.

Judge Harvey agreed and ordered that she perform 350 hours' community work and imposed 12 months' supervision.