Disguised in a balaclava and armed with a pair of scissors, Jabez Edmonds apologised to the staff member of the hair salon he was about to rob.

“Sorry, this is a robbery,” he told the startled salon worker, who said, “What?” before she saw the scissors and backed away.

Edmonds, who was 18 when he committed the armed robbery of the Takaka hair salon last August, was driven by desperation, poor mental health and substance abuse, the Nelson District Court heard during his sentencing today.

“You owed money, and couldn’t see any way around it,” said Judge Tony Zohrab, who added he was not intending to downplay the seriousness of what had happened, including the impact on the person who had confronted him and others in the salon at the time.

 “There was an intrusion into a workplace, and it was serious, but it was also relatively unsophisticated,” he told Edmonds who appeared via video link from the court in Hamilton.

A judge told a young offender in the Nelson District Court today that sending him to prison was not in the best interests of either him or the community. Photo / NZME

Edmonds, now 19, was saved from prison by submissions from the Crown and defence, which sought to create a pathway for his recovery and reintegration, as opposed to one that might send him further into a life of crime.

He was instead sentenced to eight months’ home detention on the lead charge of aggravated robbery, plus earlier charges of unlawfully taking a vehicle and driving drunk while on Waiheke Island in October 2021.

Edmonds had tried to take a car parked outside a house in Seaview Rd on Waiheke Island but got stuck in the grass verge while trying to do a U-turn.

The court heard that he removed the keys and tried to run but was caught by police.

An evidential blood test showed he had been behind the wheel while the level of alcohol in his blood had reached 91 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood.

The alcohol limit for drivers under 20 is zero.

On the morning of August 5 last year, and while on bail for the driving offences, Edmonds entered the Takaka hair salon from a back entrance, went through the shop to the till, opened the drawer and took $100 cash before he was approached by the staff member.

He was found by the police a couple of hours later and arrested.

Judge Zohrab said the staff member’s observation in her Victim Impact Statement was that Edmonds had not acted aggressively, but that he had violated their safe place of work.

She had been left triggered, and sometimes afraid when clients walked into the salon wearing face masks.

Judge Zohrab said any aggravated robbery was serious, especially in this instance for the people working in the salon, but it was unsophisticated and opportunistic and while Edmonds had scissors, he held them rather than brandished them.

Judge Zohrab accepted Edmonds’ remorse was genuine, which was evidenced by the apology he wrote to the salon on the day he robbed it.

He also acknowledged his mental health condition, the desperate financial situation Edmonds had been in, but the plan he’d come up with in order to meet his immediate needs had not considered the long-term risks to himself and his victims.

“There’s a clear link between your personal issues and your offending,” Judge Zohrab said.

From a starting point of three years in prison Edmonds was given credit for his early guilty pleas and genuine remorse, which put him within range of a sentence of home detention.

Judge Zohrab reminded Edmonds that home detention was not an easy sentence, but it had benefits for young people such as him, who had the benefit of pro-social and family support, and an employer who was willing to keep him in work.

It was this or have him mix with criminally inclined people in prison, which was in neither his nor the community’s interests, Judge Zohrab said.

Edmonds was sentenced to eight months’ home detention on each charge with conditions, and disqualified from driving for six months in relation to the driving charges.

Judge Zohrab then addressed Edmonds directly, telling him it was “really important” that he co-operated with the conditions of his sentence, otherwise a more punitive outcome was likely.

“If you come back before the court, it will take a different approach and the focus will be more on punishment – prison basically.

“Please take these opportunities,” Judge Zohrab said.