• Jayden Popata has been sentenced to prison for participating in the armed robbery of Wapiti Sports Bar one year ago.
• The robbery, which netted about $38,000 and alcohol, involved multiple masked accomplices.
• The Aucklander, who was unmasked, was quickly identified by his distinctive face tattoos.

Police have a Crips gang member’s distinctive face tattoos to thank, at least in part, for quickly solving the armed robbery of an Auckland bar last year in which an employee had a pistol pointed at her head as she was ordered to open the cash-filled safe.

“This is every staff’s nightmare - this is the scenario that they fear,” Judge Evangelos Thomas said this week as Jayden Popata appeared in Auckland District Court to be sentenced for the aggravated robbery and for a series of offences that followed - including the stabbing of a fellow inmate and a prison van escape.

“That’s what they will see every time they shut their eyes at night,” the judge continued, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if such a terrifying experience would make it difficult to continue working in a place like a bar or a bank where robberies are a risk. “Imagine the life you’ve just now dealt to them - a life of nightmares. What do they do now with their lives?”

Popata, who turns 28 this week, was already on supervision for another armed robbery when he and seven others arrived in two stolen cars at Wapiti Sports Bar in Pt Chevalier around 1.50am one Saturday in September last year as staff were in the process of closing up.

Popata, brandishing a bolt-action rifle, was accompanied by men carrying a pistol, a tyre iron, knives and a crowbar, according to the agreed summary of facts for his case.

“A locked wooden and glass door prevented entry to behind the bar area,” court documents state. “The associates used the crowbar to smash the glass in the door to unlock it, then broke open the door with such force it caused it to bend in half.

“The associates uplifted a number of bottles of spirits from the bar area and began taking them back to the vehicles.”

Crips gang member Jayden Popata appears in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to the armed robbery of a Pt Chevalier, Auckland bar, a prison stabbing and a prison escape. Photo / Craig Kapitan

At the same time, Popata ordered an employee to open the safe, which needed her fingerprint to unlock. She began to comply before realising one of Popata’s associates had pointed a pistol at her head, documents state.

“Hurry the f*** up or I will shoot you,” the man with the pistol is alleged to have said as the safe “beeped to signal that it was in the process of opening”.

Popata and the others left with about $38,000 from the safe, as well as the pilfered alcohol.

The robbers “knew what they were doing for sure”, a witness told the Herald at the time.

Broken glass from a break-in at the Wapiti Sports Bar on Carrington Rd, Pt Chevalier, during an incident on September 16, 2023.

No victim impact statements were read aloud during Popata’s sentencing, but the bar manager told the Herald last year that his staff was fearful to return to work. They were being offered free counselling and were told to take as much time off as needed, Anton Rogers-Williams said one year ago.

“They had her on her knees and were getting more and more aggressive while the safe was on a three-minute timer before it could be opened,” he said of the robbery, explaining that once the safe was finally opened the bandits shovelled the cash into a rubbish bin from behind the bar and were gone in about 30 seconds.

Most of the people who participated in the heist wore masks and were never identified, but not Popata. He was arrested one week later after police viewed CCTV footage and noticed his distinctive tattoos.

“This arrest was in part a result of information received from the public,” Auckland City CIB Detective Senior Sergeant Ash Matthews said at the time. “We would like to extend our thanks to the community for coming forward with information which has contributed to this quick arrest.”

Police released this CCTV still seeking help from the public after the September 16, 2023, robbery of Wapiti Sports Bar in Pt Chevalier, Auckland.

Roughly two months after his arrest, on December 1 last year, Popata was a remand prison at Mt Eden Correctional Facility when a fight broke out in the communal yard between a patched Mongrel Mob member and another prisoner.

At first a spectator to what appeared to be a pre-arranged face-off, Popata then chased the Mongrel Mob member into the dayroom after the fight ended and cornered him, according to the agreed summary of facts for his wounding with intent to injure charge.

As Popata and the other man squared off to fight, another person punched the victim in the face, causing him to fall to the ground.

“Whilst [he] was on the ground, Mr Popata stood over him and withdrew an improvised stabbing weapon from his waistband,” court documents state. “Mr Popata proceeded to stab [the victim] repeatedly in his torso area.”

The Wapiti Sports Bar in Pt Chevalier was robbed by multiple armed offenders on September 16, 2023. Photo / Hayden Woodward

The other prisoner was able to run away eventually, but he was admitted to the hospital with puncture wounds, cuts and bruises.

A month later, after Popata had been transferred to Auckland Men’s Prison, he committed two more crimes during an excursion to a medical appointment at Manukau Super Clinic.

“Whilst being placed in the prison van [after the appointment], the defendant struck the victim [one of three prison guards accompanying him] in the face with his hand, which still had a handcuff applied to one wrist,” court documents state.

He remained on the run for about seven days.

“I just missed the outside,” he later explained.

Police released this photo of Jayden Popata in 2018, when he was wanted on unrelated matters.

Popata faced up to 14 years’ imprisonment for the aggravated robbery charge, up to seven years for wounding with intent to injure the fellow inmate, up to five years for escaping lawful custody and up to one year for common assault of the guard he punched during the escape. He pleaded guilty to all four charges.

Crown prosecutor Conrad Purdon urged Judge Thomas to put community safety at the forefront of the sentencing exercise.

“There has to be a significant uplift for his previous offending,” Purdon said, describing the defendant as “someone who has shown time and time again that once he gets out he will do the same thing”.

“The court needs to show Mr Popata that there are escalating consequences when we take into account the need for deterrence and denunciation.”

Defence lawyer Anoushka Bloem noted that there did not appear to be a high degree of sophistication to the bar robbery, as shown by her client’s failure to hide his face. And the prison incident, she suggested, did not appear to be pre-meditated.

“This is more likely to be spontaneous than any simmering gang tensions in the yard,” she told the judge.

Bloem gave the judge a handwritten letter of apology from Popata. Although he’s been sentenced for similar conduct in the past, it appears from the letter he’s starting to mature and is ready to seek assistance for his long-standing issues, she said.

“He spent most of his life in custody,” she said, adding that deterrence has been “largely ineffective” in the past so shouldn’t be the focus for the current charges.

But the judge dismissed the letter as an empty promise, declining to offer any discount off his sentence for remorse.

Crips gang member Jayden Popata appears in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to the armed robbery of a Pt Chevalier, Auckland bar, a prison stabbing and a prison escape. Photo / Craig Kapitan

“You claim remorse. You’ve always claimed remorse,” Judge Thomas said. “You claimed remorse last time. We demonstrate remorse by our actions, not by our words.”

The judge did allow a 15% discount for Popata’s guilty pleas and a modest 6% discount for his troubled upbringing, which was not in dispute. While the defendant has received more generous discounts in the past for the same background factors, his continued offending means that it’s time for deterrence, denunciation and public protection to play a greater role, he said.

Judge Thomas settled on an end sentence of seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.

Popata, wearing all blue, flashed a gang sign and told his supporters in the courtroom gallery that he loved them before he was led away.

The Wapiti Sports Bar robbery took place during what appeared to be a days-long crime spree in the area - including armed hold-ups at two other bars and a vape shop, all of which involved multiple masked offenders. Police said at the time they were looking into a possible connection between the robberies, but Popata was never charged with any of the other crimes and they were not mentioned at his sentencing this week.

Just 24 hours before the Wapiti Sports Bar incident, the Harlequin Bar and Restaurant was targeted less than half a kilometre away.

“The gunman was yelling at the barman, ‘Where’s the rest of the money?’ The barman was saying, ‘That’s all we got’,” one witness of the Harlequin Bar heist recalled to the Herald last year. “As he was getting the cash out, the gunman punched him in the head.

“Then he fired a shot into the TV to scare him and tried to reload but his shotgun jammed.

“It was mindless – the bar person was doing what he was told.

A composite of CCTV stills taken during a robbery spree in and around Pt Chevalier in September last year.

The witness said he believed the bandits got away with about $5000.

Anyone with information that might help identify the masked offenders has been asked to call police on 105 or anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.