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Offender Databases Samual Collins

Samual Edward Collins

Alias

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Offences

Armed robbery of a video store in Hamilton in September 1996
Also indecently assaulted two girls aged five and six in 1993

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

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Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1976

Current Location

unknown

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to 4 years (armed robbery charge) in October 1996
Sentenced to 2 years (indecency charges) in September 1993

Background
Waikato Times story from 14th October 1996
A four-year jail term handed down to an armed robber today will send the message that aggravated robbery is not worth the risk, Hamilton police say. Hamilton District Court was told today that Samual Edward Collins, 20, unemployed, robbed a city video store at gunpoint because he wanted money to replace a lost leather jacket. Judge V R Jamieson was told Collins walked into United Video store on the Bridge and Grey Sts corner wearing a balaclava about 2.15pm on September 28 and pointed an unloaded BB pistol at the attendant.

He was given $385 cash and walked out of the shop. Members of the public who were in the store at the time chased and tackled him as he fled along Memorial Dr and held him until police arrived. Counsel Roger Laybourn said Collins had a background of "deep- rooted psychiatric problems" and robbed the store after associates pressured him to replace a lost leather jacket. "This was a robbery committed in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon in a video shop with the use of a firearm which was capable of firing some form of projectile," Judge Jamieson told Collins.

"The fear that the community has when that sort of act occurs with that type of person is that in the heat of the moment, in the panic that you might get caught, the offender might very well fire a shot and do some harm. "The seriousness of that sort of behaviour must be got across to other people who might be tempted to do the very thing you did," he said. Outside court, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Whitehead, of Hamilton, said the sentence sent the message that armed robbers risked more than it was worth by raiding businesses that kept small amounts of cash on their premises. Police are investigating nine unsolved aggravated robberies of businesses in the city since June.

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Corrections and Additional Information
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