Shoplifter with preference for chips, dip and cider said he did it ‘to survive’

TRACY NEAL Open Justice Reporter

A shoplifter with a penchant for chips, dip and Scrumpy Cider will have to get used to prison food for the next eight months after being jailed for stealing hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, some of which he hid down his pants.

Jake Allan Donnithorne’s crime spree dated back to April last year when he came into possession of a payWave debit card that was stolen from a vehicle parked in a Nelson driveway.

He used the card to buy $700 worth of groceries at several supermarkets. He then also stole more than $400 worth of food and alcohol, hiding most of it down his pants or in a jacket.

After already spending four months in custody pending sentencing, he was jailed for a string of charges which were described as “modest”, until they were lumped together at which stage they painted a very different picture.

“Accumulated, they were brazen in nature,” the Nelson District Court heard of the offending, which included receiving stolen property, shoplifting and using a document, namely the stolen ANZ bank card.

Donnithorne had earlier admitted a representative charge of using a document in relation to several transactions at one supermarket.

CCTV footage showed Donnithorne using the card at New World’s Nelson supermarket on three occasions, spending a total of almost $700 over 24 hours from the afternoon of April 3 last year.

The 31-year-old was also charged with a string of shoplifting offences which occurred during July, August and September last year when on separate occasions he was joined by his partner and then a family member in racking up $430 worth of items stolen from several supermarkets.

Those items included $110 worth of beef eye fillet, chocolate bars, cider, cheese, dips, crumbed chicken, lamb chops, cheese and pepperoni salami, some of which Donnithorne hid down his pants.

He told the police he had been “shoplifting to survive” and while he couldn’t quite remember what he’d done, the offences were likely committed by him because “all he really eats is chips, dip and Scrumpy Cider”.

In September last year, Donnithorne added a liquor store to the list of venues from which he stole, when he went there with his partner and took a $63 bottle of gin and put it inside his jacket.

When store staff asked him to open his jacket, he refused and walked out.

The action was caught on the store’s CCTV.

A few days later he was back at the supermarket, where he took chicken tenderloins which he placed inside his jacket and a bottle of Scrumpy Cider he put down his pants.

Donnithorne and his partner then moved on to another supermarket where they took turns carrying a shopping basket, and made their way around the store collecting cheese and dip.

Donnithorne hid the items and they left the store without paying. They returned a few days later when he took a pork roast and a pack of mince.

The next day he added bacon and a lamb rack to his list, this time he took a family member to the supermarket.

The pair then went to another supermarket the following day where they selected bacon and brisket, then tried to leave without paying.

The store manager tried to stop them from leaving, but was pushed away. He managed to hold on to Donnithorne before the family member ran at the manager and pushed him hard into a doorframe.

The pair ran from the store to their car and fled.

The charge of receiving was laid after Donnithorne came into possession of a copper hot water cylinder, stolen last August from a Wakefield farm.

He then sold it to a Nelson scrap metal yard for $75.

The following month police searched a Nelson property where they spoke to a female associate who admitted being involved in the burglary but said the male involved was not Donnithorne.

Police found him a short time later hiding in a bedroom.

Judge Tony Zohrab said the thefts might have been “relatively modest” unless you happened to be someone who managed a store.

He sentenced Donnithorne to eight months in prison and granted him leave to apply for home detention at a residential rehabilitation programme when one became available.

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