Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2009]JRC163

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

14^th August 2009

The Attorney General

-v-

David Hall

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following guilty pleas to the following charges:

Age:  27.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

The defendant was born in Jersey and is 27 years old.

On 21^st November, 2008, Hall appeared before this Court and was sentenced to a two-year Probation Order and ordered to complete 180 hours' Community Service, after pleading guilty to charges of breaking and entering, larceny and possession of an offensive weapon, following a break-in at the Rectory at St. Brelade.

On 21^st April, 2009, Hall went into Trek Plus in Colomberie.  After he left without buying anything a t-shirt and jacket were found to be missing.  On 29^th April he returned to the shop where he was recognised and the police were called.  He was arrested and taken to his home address where the t-shirt, valued at £30.80, was located.  In interview Hall denied the offence and claimed that he had purchased the t-shirt the previous year.

On 8^th May, 2009, Hall went to Grande Marche, St Peter.  CCTV footage shows him taking bottles of wine from the display, and then going to the checkout where he purchased cigarettes, but did not pay for the wine.  As he left the shop he removed a bunch of flowers from a display near the door.

He was arrested on 8^th May at Silkworth Lodge, and in interview said that he had no recollection of the events, but conceded that it was him in the CCTV.  He said that he would have given the flowers to a female and drunk the wine.  The total value of the wine and flowers was £14.78.

Details of Mitigation:

Guilty plea, addressing substance misuse.

Previous Convictions:

Several offences of dishonesty and theft.

Conclusions:

Breach: Ordered to complete the remaining 59 hours' Community Service Order or 4 months' imprisonment in default.

Total: 159 hours' Community Service Order.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted.

R. C. P. Pedley, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate C. G. P. Lakeman for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE commissioner:

1.        The defendant has pleaded guilty to two relatively minor larceny charges but, more seriously, is in breach of a Probation and Community Service Order imposed on 21^st November, 2008, for charges of breaking and entering, larceny and possession of an offensive weapon. 

2.        It is helpful to read the short judgment of the Court on that occasion:-

"We are going to impose non-custodial sentences upon you because we accept all the things which your Advocate has said on your behalf.  We accept that you did have this relapse but that you are determined to turn your back on heroin and that you are going to do your best with the assistance of the different agencies and your parents to lead a decent life in future.  We are going to punish you nonetheless for the break-in which you committed which, as I have explained, is a serious offence, but you will not go to prison unless you fail to comply with these different non-custodial orders."

3.        These new offences were committed within six months of the sentence and those words of the Court when the defendant was under the influence of drink or drugs.  The defendant clearly did not, as he indicated to the Court, address his substance misuse and by January of 2009 had become a full-blown heroin user again.  Furthermore he appears to have in some way misled the Probation Department, when taking his drugs tests, into thinking that he was drugs free.  He has however spent the last six weeks at Silkworth Lodge undertaking a ten week rehabilitation course during which he has been drug free and indeed, we understand it is a condition that you are drugs free before you can attend at Silkworth Lodge.  After that it is proposed that you progress to secondary treatment at a half-way house at West Park Avenue and we have received from Mr Lakeman a positive and hopeful report from Silkworth Lodge.  We also understand that the defendant regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous of which he used to be a key member.

4.        The defendant has completed 121 of his community service hours so he has 59 hours remaining and both his counsel, the Probation Department and the Alcohol and Drugs Service recommend a community treatment so that he can stay at Silkworth Lodge which they all say presents the best hope of his addressing the cause of this offending i.e. his addiction.  His parents remain supportive despite all that they have had to bear and suffer and his father is in Court.  The parents have agreed to supervise the administration of the opiate blocker.

5.        Mr Hall, the Court has to protect the public from the offending which accompanies addiction of this kind but we can see that the greatest protection must lie in your conquering this addiction.  The current offences are relatively minor and we have concluded that we should allow you to stay at Silkworth Lodge notwithstanding what was said to you on the last occasion, but you must understand that there will come a point, and we are there if not very close to it, when the interest of the public will override those of you as an individual, so that on the next occasion you may not be given a further chance.

6.        We are therefore going to grant the conclusions of the Crown.  We affirm the existing Community Service and Probation Orders.  You will complete the 59 hours that you still have to do.  On the 2 charges before us we impose on each charge a Community service Order of 50 hours, consecutive.  That is a total of 100 hours' Community Service which is the equivalent of 4 months' imprisonment.

Authorities

AG-v-Hall [2008] JRC 198.