Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2007]JRC156

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

10^th August 2007

The Attorney General

-v-

Matthew Charles Harris

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court following a guilty plea to the following charge:

Age:  26.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

Took his own methadone (25ml bottle) into prison when visiting his girlfriend and supplied it to her in the visiting suite.  The act was caught on CCTV and the bottle was recovered moments later from his girlfriend's clothing.  The defendant denied the offence in interview, but later pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.  All offending motivated by heroin addiction.  Had been on probation from the Magistrate's Court for just 29 days when he committed the instant offence.  Social Enquiry Report assessed him as high risk of re-offending.  Drug report suggested no motivation to address his drug addiction and attendant offending.

Aggravating features: supply within prison; appalling criminal record for drug and drug related offences (most notably a 4 year prison sentence for smuggling heroin in 2003); persistent contempt for Court orders (no fewer than 4 previous Probation Orders had all be imposed in the past and all were breached in short order by re-offending); no remorse.

Details of Mitigation:

Timely guilty plea, though not full credit given because CCTV evidence gave him no realistic prospect of acquittal.

Previous Convictions:

41 previous convictions, including 10 drug offences.

Conclusions:

Forfeiture and destruction of drugs sought.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

(NB: The Court reduced the Crown's conclusions to allow for the fact that the defendant's girlfriend had been dealt with summarily for possession of the methadone and had received only an 8 week sentence from the Magistrate - "The conclusions of the Crown Advocate which might otherwise have been fully justified." (Per Bailiff).

Forfeiture and destruction of drugs ordered.

M. T. Jowitt, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate J. C. Gollop for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE BAILIFF:

1.        This defendant supplied Methadone to his girlfriend who was an inmate of La Moye Prison.  He was, at that time, subject to a Probation Order.  He is a recidivist with a long criminal record; he has indeed spent about 9 of the last 10 years in prison for various offences, mainly associated with his drug addiction.

2.        In mitigation he pleaded guilty to the charge at the first available opportunity, he admitted responsibility for what he had done and he did not attempt to shift the blame to his girlfriend.  The Probation Officer has invited the Court to consider whether this is an appropriate time to impose a non-custodial sentence on the basis that the cycle of offending and prison should be broken.  The Defendant has, however, been placed on Probation four times and each of those orders has failed, in the sense that he has committed breaches of the probation order. 

3.        More importantly, perhaps, the Drug and Alcohol Service is not persuaded that Harris is yet motivated to address his addiction.  We have taken note of the fact that the defendant is now seeing the Prison Chaplain and we hope very much that he might derive some inspiration from that source to think about changing his ways.  He must, however, at this stage be punished for what is a very serious offence of supplying a Class A drug to an inmate at the prison.

4.        The gravity of the offence has been made clear by the Court on a number of occasions.  As the Court said in the case of Whitehouse [2003] JRC 200, trading in drugs inside the prison undermines the discipline which all prisoners must accept.  The problems created by the demand for, and supply of, drugs, especially Class A drugs in the environment of the prison, are obvious.  The corruption of relationships and the damage to training programmes are but examples. 

5.        Each case must, however, be considered on its individual merits.  We are a little troubled by the suggested feelings of injustice on the part of the defendant, drawn to our attention by his Counsel, that his former girlfriend received what appears, on the face of it, to be a lenient sentence for the possession of a Class A drug inside the prison.  Of course we are not dealing with that case and there may well have been special factors justifying the sentence at which the Magistrate arrived.  Nonetheless we take that factor into account and we are going to reduce, slightly, the conclusions of the Crown Advocate which might otherwise have been fully justified.

6.        We are going to sentence you on the single Count on the indictment to imprisonment for 2 years and we are going to order the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs.

Authorities

AG v Whitehouse [2003] JRC 200.