A woman who stabbed Kmart staff members with a pair of tongs during a drunken late-night shoplifting excursion that descended into a violent, chaotic spectacle has been jailed.

And it was a spectacle seen by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people after cellphone footage taken of the drunken fracas spread on social media.

One of the two women responsible for the brawling, Sharice Gail Dionne Merenia Ruangio Walker-Grace, 27, was sentenced to 17 months of imprisonment when she appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday.

She had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault, common assault, theft and breach of court bail.

It was 11.23pm on Saturday, April 16, when Walker-Grace and her companion Kitia Lucy Toimata, 24, made their way into the Kmart store on Bryce St in downtown Hamilton.

For the next 15 minutes they filled up two trolleys with goods from around the store, before bypassing the checkout and heading straight for the front entrance.

But staff in the store had spotted them and, suspecting shoplifting was afoot, three of them blocked the exit to prevent the pair from making off with the pilfered items.

The two women, however, were determined to break through the human barrier.

Walker-Grace used her trolley in a bid to ram her way through the three staff members. Then, clutching a pair of metal kitchen tongs, she took a swing at one of the three victims, a 59-year-old female security guard, in a stabbing motion.

She then turned her attention to the security guard's companion, a 28-year-old store assistant, swinging the tongs at his face.

As the female security guard was attempting to deal with Toimata – who had grabbed her hair and was refusing to let go – Walker-Grace stabbed her in the back with the tongs. She then attempted to stab the store assistant and the third victim, a 66-year-old male security guard, in an attempt to grab and take off with the stolen goods.

Toimata eventually released the female security guard's hair and was bundled out the front entrance by the male security guard. She immediately returned and punched the older man three times in the head.

A member of the public intervened and the two women left – only to return a short time later to continue their quest.

As Toimata uplifted what the police summary of facts describes as a 'box of product” from a shelf, Walker-Grace walked up to the store assistant and stabbed him in the back with the tongs. She then tried to stab the female security guard.

During the melee, the female guard's cellphone fell out of her front pocket and Walker-Grace grabbed it. It has never been recovered.

Toimata grabbed four more boxes of goods, and the pair ran out to a waiting car, which took off.

Although the staff managed to save $1287 worth of goods from being taken, the two women managed to procure an estimated $400 to $500 worth of goods. The female security guard needed a week off work to recover from her injuries.

In court, Walker-Grace's lawyer, Gerard Walsh, said she was regretful for both the offending and the notoriety it had brought her.

He sought a sentence of no more than 18 months in jail for his client.

A pre-sentence report for Walker-Grace determined her risk of further reoffending as 'imminent”.

She had told the writer of that report she took ownership of her offending, and she was very drunk at the time.

An additional report into her cultural background found she had experienced a good upbringing.

'You are not sure why you went the way you did,” Judge Dean Blair said. 'You acknowledge coming from a good home.”

As Walsh had told the court during his submissions, 'liquor and some decision-making for her has set the path”.

Toimata had earlier been sentenced to 25 months in jail. In addition to the Kmart charges, she was also sentenced on charges of drink-driving, assaulting an Uber driver, and two other occasions of shoplifting and assault.

-Mike Mather/Stuff.