A Dunedin woman stole a handbag from a retirement village and went on a $1000 spending spree, a court has heard.
Kylie Marie Booth (35) appeared in the Dunedin District Court this week where she was sentenced to 12 months’ supervision and 100 hours’ community work on a raft of charges following two months of drug-fuelled crime.
On December 18 last year, the defendant crashed her Toyota into a power pole in Musselburgh Rise, causing more than $11,000 of damage.
The court heard Booth was taken to hospital and her state was such that she was unfit to make a statement to police.
A blood test showed Booth had mixed methamphetamine, methadone, tranquillisers and cannabis before the crash.
Just a couple of weeks after the incident, the defendant was in trouble again.
Booth went to a Maori Hill retirement home to pick up a purchase she had made online and while there she took a handbag that had been left outside a unit.
The bag’s contents, which included a wallet, reading glasses and make-up, were worth $1800.
Over the next couple of days, Booth used the victim’s bank card to obtain $996 of goods.
That, and other instances of shoplifting she also admitted, was a result of her poverty and drug issues at the time, counsel Cate Andersen said.
Booth was living in emergency housing with her son and struggling financially. Ms Andersen said that was compounded by another car crash in the last year which resulted in a bill for $16,000.
If the $11,000 for the power pole was added to it, Booth would be paying reparation for more than 30 years, she said.
Judge Peter Rollo said that amounted to extreme financial hardship and if Aurora Energy wanted compensation it would have to pursue the defendant through the civil courts.
He ordered Booth pay $2905 for the various thefts and bank-card fraud and banned from driving for six months.
