Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2010]JRC127A

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

9^th July 2010

The Attorney General

-v-

Joseph Samuel Povey

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court on a breach of a Community Service Order imposed on 2^nd December, 2009, on the following charge:

Age:  47.

Plea: Guilty.

Conclusions:

Breach of Community Service Order: £500 fine and cancellation of Community Service Order.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Breach of Community Service Order: £200 fine to be paid in 2 weeks or 2 weeks' imprisonment in default and to perform the balance of 33 hours community service. 

S. M. Baker, Esq., Crown Advocate.

The Defendant represented himself.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Mr Povey, you are before us today for breach of a Community Service Order which the Court imposed on 2^nd December, 2009, when you pleaded guilty to 1 charge of assault for which you were sentenced to perform 70 hours of community service. 

2.        May I remind you that what the Court said on that occasion was that:-"The Court treats violence at night on the streets of St Helier very seriously".  There is no doubt at all that the appropriate sentence for you in relation to that offence would have been 2 months' imprisonment but as an alternative the Court was prepared to impose a Community Service Order and I have a note from the hearing on that occasion that your counsel Advocate Fogarty told the Court that you suffered from a trapped nerve and that you would be willing to do community service and able to do it. 

3.        You have agreed this morning that you are in breach of the Community Service Order and you have seen a copy of the report from the Probation Service which sets out the various breaches of that order. 

4.        Article 2 of the Criminal Justice (Community Service Orders)(Jersey) Law 2001 says that the Court has power to make a Community Service Order only where it was considering passing a sentence of imprisonment in your case.  The Community Service Order is to be performed according to the Law in this way:-

The Obligations of the offender, that is you, are to:-

"(a) keep in touch with the relevant officer in accordance with such instructions as the offender may from time to time be given by that officer and notify the officer of any change of address; and

(b) perform, to the satisfaction of the relevant officer and for the number of hours specified in the order, such work at such times as the offender may be instructed by the relevant officer." 

The managers of the community service programme have the obligation under the Law to ensure that the community service work is performed when the Court so orders it and you have an obligation to comply with what you are told to do by the community service manager.

5.        It is sometimes said that the performance of community service is some sort of soft option; indeed some offenders may themselves take that view because they are entitled to retain their liberty while the Community Service Order is being performed.  But the extracts which I have read to you from the Law make it plain that it is an alternative to imprisonment only in cases which are serious enough which would otherwise justify sending someone to prison, and the Court is not going to stand by and permit its orders in relation to community service to be ignored, to be disregarded and generally to be taken lightly.  Community Service is absolutely not a soft option. 

6.        The Court is satisfied that there has been a breach of community service on this occasion and we have been pondering on what is the best way of dealing with it now.  We are going to mark that breach by fining you the sum of £200 or 2 weeks' imprisonment and you have 2 weeks to pay that fine.  £200 is the fine for the breach of the Community Service Order which has been imposed so far. 

7.        We have then gone on to consider what we are going to do with the Community Service Order itself and we have decided that you will perform the balance of the Community Service Order within the timetable which is set down by the community service managers.  So you will do whatever you are required to do for the purposes of performing that Order which the Court imposed last year.  The balance of 33 hours left to serve and as far as the Court is concerned, we have noted that you had absolutely no difficulty in walking from the back of the Court to the dock and no difficulty in walking from the dock to the place in front of us and indeed, you say yourself, that you are willing to do the work and you feel fit so you should do the full programme which you are required to do by community service. 

8.        I want to give you this warning.  If there is a next time, if there is a further breach then almost certainly you will be remanded in custody while counsel is found for you because this Court takes the view that although what the Court does on the next occasion, if you do not perform this, will be a matter for that Court, we think a custodial sentence is inevitable and what is more, as far as we are concerned we think that it is unlikely that that Court will give any credit for the community service which you have performed so far.  So the result of that would be that you will be sentenced to a sentence of imprisonment which is in addition to the community service which you have performed.  I say that because I want to make it quite plain that the Court's orders about community service are to be performed. 

Authorities

AG-v-Evans and Povey [2009] JRC232.