Addict burglar shot in stoush

Jamie Clarke was breaking into houses, sheds, businesses, and community clubs, taking what he could - tools, guns, cars - and trading it to help quench a meth addiction that cost Clarke $600 to $800 a day.

The 23-year-old was losing weight - a staggering 35kg in a month.

By the night of May 22, the pattern of sneaking about South Canterbury at night was long familiar.

Dressed in black, with a black balaclava on his head, he headed down Waipopo Rd, and snuck around the house, sheds, garages and outbuildings of a working farm.

He pinched two toolboxes from the back of a Mazda ute before sliding open a kitchen window. The slight noise roused a sleeping dog inside, which barked and scared him off.

Clarke, who comes from near Geraldine, ventured further down Waipopo Rd and inside another property. The farmer was away. Clarke smashed a large lounge window and crunched inside.

He went room to room, rifling drawers, cupboards and wardrobes.

During his search, he found the key to a firearms safe - then the safe itself. He took all five guns inside: a single barrel shotgun, side-by-side shotgun, camo shotgun, camo .270 rifle, and .22 rifle. He also discovered a steel box of ammunition which he tipped into a bucket found in the laundry.

A huge New Holland tractor was parked near the house. He got in, fired it up, and drove back into the night.

Clarke stopped at a nearby farm on Hides Rd and stuffed two guns under a hedge and two more along the fenceline inside the gate.

He took one of the shotguns, which he loaded, with him into the property.

He entered through an unlocked back door, switched on a hallway light to search kitchen cupboards and drawers. It woke the farmer's wife. Her thoughts flashed to her young son asleep in the sleepout. She nudged her sleeping husband: Somebody's here.

He got out of bed to investigate. Immediately he saw cupboards and drawers lying open. He went outside and saw Clarke backing his brand-new ute out of the driveway.

He ran over and pulled open the passenger door.

Clarke, with the black balaclava now pulled down over his face, picked up the shotgun and pointed it at the farmer.

"F*** off, I'll shoot you," he said.

Without thinking, the farmer, who spent all his life on farms and around guns, grabbed the weapon and tried to wrench it from Clarke's grasp.

They wrestled and The farmer, thinking the barrel was clear, "intentionally discharged the two rounds in an attempt to make it safe", the police summary of facts says.

One of the rounds blasted into Clarke's hand from close range "causing a significant injury".

It allowed the farmer to get hold of the gun. Clarke rolled out of the ute and lunged to get it back.

There, in the farmyard in the middle of the night, they scrapped. The farmer managed to swing the gun at Clarke, striking him on the head with such force it broke the wooden stock.

He held him down on the ground and waited for police to arrive.

Breathing hard, it was over.

The aftermath Clarke was arrested and treated for his gunshot injury at Christchurch Hospital before he was taken to the city's men's prison.

When police officers interviewed him, he admitted his offending. He said the stolen property was bartered directly for drugs and used to fund his meth addiction.

Later, he would plead guilty to a raft of charges, including aggravated burglary, plus theft, gun and drugs charges. He was sentenced at Timaru District Court to three years, nine months behind bars.

At the sentencing hearing, the farmer told the court how he ended up in a fight-or-flight situation that night. "Some people have said what I did was foolish, but you just react, you have to look after your family," he said in a victim impact statement.

"It's really scary to think that someone can bring a loaded firearm to your property. You can't help but think of the what-ifs and how easy it would be someone could have ended up dead.

"I try not to dwell on what happened and run those what-ifs through my head because I know it could have gone so badly." He didn't expect the firearm to be loaded and says he only found that out after he pulled the trigger.

And the incident has left him deeply shaken.

"Being involved in something where you end up shooting somebody is something that I really struggled with," he told the court. "The shooting is something I try very hard not to think about."

‘Destructive' drug

The farming family say a restorative justice meeting with Clarke had been productive. They got an understanding of Clarke's background and his terrifying descent into drug addiction.

And it's been a real eye-opener into how destructive the drug is.

"I hope Jamie can come back from it," the wife said.

They believe the dealers are the ones who should really be locked up.

"They are the root cause of it all and they seem to be avoiding any consequence," the farmer said in his victim impact statement.

"I thought we were in a safe community, but now I can see as a victim of this type of crime that I feel not enough has been done to curb it. I am now so much more aware of what the drug is doing to the community.

"This was an invasion of our private property. I still struggle coming to terms with the fact someone thought it was okay to bring a firearm on to our property.