Hamilton armed robbers found sleeping on mattress in garage after targeting Four Square for vapes

As three people armed with weapons and wearing hoods ran into a Four Square supermarket, jumping the front counter, a staff member wondered what the noise was.Coming out of the kitchen, she walked towards the till and was confronted by Jayden Bint, 24, and his two co-offenders, holding either tyre irons or hedge clippers.One of them approached her and hit the door to the kitchen with a tyre iron, scaring her and causing her to lock herself inside the kitchen.Bint's co-offender, meanwhile, stripped the cupboards of vape products and cigarette lighters and handed them to him.Bint recently appeared in the Hamilton District Court 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.Court documents state that two cars were stolen from around Hamilton for the robbery - one from York St, the other from Silverdale Rd - during Waitangi weekend this year.At 7.27am on 6 February, Bint and two others arrived at the Four Square in Cambridge in a white Toyota Aqua.Two staff members were working; one was stacking shelves and the other was in the kitchen near the till.The trio, all wearing disguises, ran in, with Bint's associates jumping over the counter.After the staff member locked herself in the kitchen, the associates emptied the cigarette cupboard and passed the stolen items to Bint.All three fled the store and drove to Epping Place in Hamilton, where they dumped the car.They then jumped into the second car before dumping it in Rachel Place.Police then received information that the trio had been seen entering a property in Duke St, Hamilton.There, the defendants were found asleep on a mattress in a garage, two of them still wearing clothing matching that seen during the robbery.A Nike backpack also contained some of the stolen lighters and vapes.Addiction 'plainly entrenched'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's guilty plea and youth.The judge then took into account Bint's criminal history, which included violence and firearm offending.He also noted Bint's drug addiction, which he said was "plainly entrenched" in that history."It 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."Judge Crayton issued Bint a first strike under the Three Strikes legislation, and a firearms prohibition order, "due to the risk you pose to public safety".He jailed Bint for two years and 11 months.The co-offenders are being dealt with in the Youth Court on the matter.* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.Open Justice