Gunpoint liquor shop robbery admitted

A Christchurch man has admitted shoving a sawn-off shotgun in the face of a liquor shop worker in a robbery that was part of a $66,600 crime spree.

Joshua Peter Brennan, 26, unemployed, pleaded guilty in Christchurch District Court today to two commercial burglaries, receiving $30,000 in stolen goods from another shop burglary, and the armed robbery of the Shirley Liquorland.

He was remanded in custody by Judge Stephen Erber for sentence on April 14. He will also be sentenced on the same day for other charges on which he had been earlier found guilty.

Judge Erber asked for pre-sentence and victim impact reports to be prepared.

Two alleged co-offenders are still to stand trial on February 22.

Police said that on April 20 2008, Brennan and two others went to the Shirley Liquorland store, armed with a sawn-off shotgun and wearing gloves, face masks, hats, and full length dark clothing.

Two of them waited until the shop assistant was closing up, then Brennan shoved the shotgun in the assistant's face, and pushed him back into the store.

The assistant was pushed to the floor and dragged into the office and made to lie there while they emptied the unlocked safe of more than $11,000.

Brennan admitted receiving a rare T-shirt which was found at his address three months after the $30,000 burglary of a store in High Street on February 21 2008.

It was one of many items of clothing stolen in the burglary.

He admitted burgling a cake shop in St Albans and taking a laptop computer and a safe containing $9579 in cash. He paid $200 to a relative who worked at the shop for giving information about the location of the safe and the best method to break-in.

On August 25 2008, Brennan was among three who burgled a brewing company in the city.

They got in by removing glass from an upstairs window, and made a hole in the floor to get into the office below where they removed a safe from the wall. It contained $15,582 in cash.

Later that day, the police found the group and recovered half the cash.

An associate of the trio, an employee at the company, was charged with being a party to the offence.

- NZPA