Kirsty-Lee Tobin. It’s just in a different category.
Kirsty-Lee Tobin (38) had already been trespassed from The Warehouse when she went to the Maclaggan St outlet on June 30.
The plan to go there with her children and partner to steal a range of household items was therefore “quite brazen”, Judge Michael Crosbie said, reports Otago Daily Times.
He told Tobin he was “unimpressed” by her decision to involve minors in the criminal enterprise.
“They didn’t know,” the defendant told him.
“Only when I was arrested.”
She had a point there. She was being the perfect mum before store staff and police exposed her activities to her children. /tui
Tobin grabbed a trolley when she entered The Warehouse and loaded in a 49-inch television.
She added a duvet set, a toaster and a Nerf gun, while the children each grabbed a basketball.
While her partner distracted staff, she walked out with nearly $1700 of goods, which were never recovered by police.
Looks like she was getting in some early Christmas shopping.
Four days earlier she and the same man had gone to Pak’n Save in South Dunedin.
There they loaded up a trolley with groceries.
Tobin went to the checkout but claimed she had lost her money in the store.
She was directed to the customer service desk, where she told an attendant her cash was in the car.
While attempting to push the trolley to the car park with $497 of supermarket items, she was intercepted by staff who realised what was unfolding.
Tobin was told she could come back and pay for the groceries but never did.
She pleaded guilty to theft over the incident as well as a count of burglary relating to the trip to The Warehouse.
Before you fully condemn this woman, please note that she is a lot more honest than someone who steals the money from the government for four years and then safely spends it like it was honestly obtained.
She may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but there is a raw honesty to that completely absent from people like Metiria Turei. Because Kirsty-Lee Tobin knows and acknowledges she did wrong.
If we are handing out Mother of the Year awards, we should definitely keep one for MeTu.