February 09, 2010

Gun-point liquor shop robbery admitted

Joshua Peter Brennan has admitted shoving a sawn-off shotgun in the face of a liquor shop worker in a robbery that was part of a $66,600 crime spree.

He pleaded guilty to four charges today: two commercial burglaries, receiving stolen goods from another shop burglary, and the armed robbery of the Shirley Liquorland.

He was remanded in custody by Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen Erber for sentence on April 14.

Brennan, an unemployed 26-year-old, had been due to stand trial on these charges in a fortnight, but changed his pleas to guilty at a pre-trial session today.

Judge Erber asked for pre-sentence and victim impact reports to be prepared. Brennan has also been found guilty on other charges and will be sentenced on those at the same time.

Two alleged co-offenders are still to stand trial on February 22.

Brennan admitted receiving a rare t-shirt which was found at his address three months after the $30,000 burglary of a store in High Street on February 21, 2008. It was one of many items of clothing stolen in the burglary.

He admitted burgling a cake shop in St Albans and taking a laptop computer and a safe containing $9579 in cash. He paid $200 to a relative who worked at the shop for giving information about the location of the safe and the best method to break-in.

On April 20, 2008, police say he was with two others when he went to the Shirley Liquorland store, armed with a sawn-off shotgun and wearing gloves, face masks, hats, and full length dark clothing.

Two of them waited until the shop assistant was closing up, and then Brennan pushed the shotgun the assistant’s face and pushed him back into the store.

The assistant was pushed to the floor and dragged into the office and made to lie there while they emptied the unlocked safe. They got $11,109 cash.

As they left, they took the store’s cordless phone and told the victim not to get up for five minutes. They ran around the corner to Joy Street where the getaway driver had parked the car.

On August 25, 2008, police say Brennan was among three who burgled a brewing company in the city. They got in by removing glass from an upstairs window, and made a hole in the floor to get into the office below where they removed a safe from the wall. It contained $15,582 cash.

Later that day, the police found the group and recovered half the cash.

An associate of the trio, who was an employee at the company, was charged with being a party to the offence.