By Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of 
Hamilton District Court. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
A recidivist shoplifter, who has been stealing for more than half his life, says he now wants to break his thieving habit.
Cole Frederick Jenkins' most recent "indiscriminate" offending stretched from Auckland to Cambridge, and involved everything from power tools to sunglasses to a $1500 e-scooter to groceries.
"Sentences in the past have done nothing to deter you or rehabilitate you," Judge Kim Saunders told the 41-year-old in the Hamilton District Court on Friday, as she jailed him on 40 charges, mostly dishonesty related.
"I ask if you are genuinely committed to rehabilitating, but I'm not entirely convinced that you are, because you have been stealing for nearly 25 years."
Counsel Rob Quin said an electronically monitored sentence was never going to be sought and sentencing was simply about whether there would be any more discounts, after he accepted a sentence indication back in July.
Jenkins, of Hamilton, now wanted to turn his life around and quit his thieving.
"He has had some time in custody to clear his head," Quin said. "It sounds like he's reconnected with family and sounds like he's in a much better position than when I first met him earlier this year."
Jenkins' crime spree
Two of the 40 charges were for burglaries from last December.
One was at Stihl Morrinsville, when he walked into a workshop, and took an AEG battery grinder and $1500 battery pack from a van, and left.
He then stole more tools from Novus Glass later that month.
The rest of his thefts occurred between August and February this year.
He stole chainsaws from Stihl worth $2345, and sunglasses worth just under $4000 from Sunglass Hut in Newmarket.
Jenkins stole a $1500 e-scooter from The Warehouse Hillcrest and a $1200 vacuum cleaner from Briscoes.
He also stole power tools worth thousands of dollars from Mitre 10, boots from Footloose in Cambridge, perfume worth $788 from a pharmacy in Cambridge, a hedgetrimmer, clothing, speakers from Noel Leeming, and groceries worth more than $2000 from Woolworths St James and Rototuna.
At his sentencing, the judge said she wasn't surprised Mitre 10 had trespassed Jenkins.
She labelled his offending as "repetitive and planned".
"You clearly knew where you were going," she said. "The value [stolen] is at least $25,000."
She said he could not afford to pay any reparation.
"I went through what it is that you stole, because you are so indiscriminate as to the nature of the items and property that you took.
"It doesn't surprise me to learn that you have 50 previous dishonesty convictions, since you were first convicted of burglary in 2001."
Jenkins penned his own cultural report for the judge, outlining his exposure to violence as a youngster, and why he turned to alcohol and drugs.
However, she noted he had gained some work skills during his life and was the head of painting at Spring Hill Prison.
She gave him five percent credit for trying to rehabilitate himself, before jailing him for 20 months.
- This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald
