Jersey Unreported Judgments

Inferior Number Sentencing - disorderly conduct - contempt of Court - breach of peace - resisting police officer - conspiracy to defraud.

[2012]JRC207

Royal Court

(Samedi)

12 November 2012

Before     :

W. J. Bailhache, Q.C., Deputy Bailiff, and Jurats Morgan and Kerley.

The Attorney General

-v-

Darren Anthony Hendron

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

First Indictment

1 count of:	Being disorderly on licensed premises, contrary to Article 82 of the Licensing (Jersey) Law 1974 (Count 1).
1 count of:	Contempt of Court (Count 2).
1 count of:	Conduct likely to cause a breach of the public peace (Count 3).
1 count of:	Resisting a police officer in the execution of his duty (Count 4).

Second indictment

2 counts of:

Conspiracy to defraud (Counts 1 and 2).

Age:  41.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

First Indictment

An affray occurred in a public house involving some of Hendron's friends or associates.  It was described as being like a "Wild West saloon fight".  Hendron was on the periphery and was described as acting threateningly and aggressively and he grabbed one of the barmaids by the hair and pulled her head towards him.  He let her go when told to do so (Count 1). 

He facilitated one of his co-accused involved in the affray who was also charged with other unrelated offences to abscond in breach of bail.  He facilitated this contempt of court by providing the co-accused with his mobile phone and the necessary contact details and information so that the co-accused could organise travel arrangements from Jersey back to Ireland via France and this via the Latvian fraud scheme (Count 2). 

On a separate occasion the defendant in a drunken state contacted the police by telephone.  Because the police were concerned, they attended at the defendant's home address where they ascertained that nothing untoward had occurred other than that he was drunk.  He was aggressive and trying to pick a fight.  The officers decided to leave the premises but Hendron continued to be aggressive and abusive.  Whilst outside the premises he continued.  He was told to desist but did not and therefore was arrested and he resisted that arrest (Counts 3 and 4). 

All of the public order offences were aggravated by alcohol and some were committed whilst on bail. 

Given the seriousness of the conspiracy to defraud counts the Crown submitted that only a custodial sentence was appropriate. 

Second Indictment

Hendron was assisting a group of Latvians based in Guernsey to commit frauds on FlyBe and Jersey Telecom who were using stolen credit card details to obtain fights from FlyBe to the FlyBe internet website and telephone credit from Jersey telecom "top up" purchased via the internet. 

Hendron would pass on the relevant information from an individual in Jersey for the services offered to the Latvian contacts.  Once the flights etc had been booked then Hendron would collect payment from the individuals being 50% of the correct online price.  In relation to the flights his payment was £20 per flight and for the "top up" £5 per transaction.  He would then pay the balance into the bank account for the Latvians.  At interview under caution he claimed that he thought that the transactions were all legitimate.  The defendant did not have any hidden funds arising out of his involvement and appeared to have used his payments for additional beer money.  The financial loss to the two victims over a four month period was approximately £7,663 for FlyBe and £1,000 for JT.

Details of Mitigation:

The Crown

Guilty pleas save in relation to the contempt of court which was only entered late in the day; not co-operative with the police in interview on any of the matters. Little or no remorse shown; had previous convictions but had not received a custodial sentence; assessed as being at high risk of reoffending.  The Crown had regard of all the relevant information contained within the papers when considering its conclusions. 

The Defence

Alcohol identified as being his underlying problem.  Probation recommended Probation Order to address that underlying problem but he felt he had come to terms with alcohol himself whilst on remand and that alcohol was no longer an issue.  Public order offences would normally have been dealt with in Magistrate's Court.  Suggested that contempt of court was less serious as he had not breached his bail conditions i.e. he had not absconded.  Guilty pleas.  Spent time on remand and suggested that the Court should impose a sentence which allowed for immediate release. 

Previous Convictions:

Total of 12 convictions for a variety of offences including burglary, assault, handling, indecent behaviour, fare evasion, drink driving and possession of class A drug. 

Conclusions:

First Indictment

Count 1:	1 month's imprisonment.
Count 2:	6 months' imprisonment, concurrent.
Count 3:	1 month's imprisonment, concurrent.
Count 4:	2 months' imprisonment, concurrent.

Second Indictment

Count 1:	18 months' imprisonment, consecutive to the First Indictment.
Count 2:	18 months' imprisonment, concurrent.

Total: 2 years' imprisonment.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

The defendant is to be sentenced on two Indictments. 

The First Indictment the Court noted that normally these offences would have been dealt with in the lower court either by a financial penalty or by a short period of custody.  It was put to the Court that over the relevant period he was drinking excessively which was bringing him to the attention of the police.  The Court had noted whilst on remand he had addressed his dependency on alcohol and the Court expressed the hope that remained the position upon his release.  The Court considered Count 2 to be a serious contempt of court.  The Court was in no doubt that Hendron had facilitated a breach of bail/absconding by the co-accused.  However it was felt the Crown's conclusions were on the high side and the appropriate sentence for this offence was 4 months' imprisonment. 

The two counts on the Second Indictment contained the more serious offences.  The Court recognised that his return for his involvement was not very large but had taken that into account.  If his return had been higher then the sentence might have been higher.  His role was an important part of the conspiracy to provide the details of the person using the fraudulent services and to collect the payments.  The Court concluded that the Crown's conclusions on Count 1 and Count 2 were correct. 

The Court then considered the issue of totality and having regard to the mitigation and all the information contained within the papers concluded that the correct sentence was to make all of the individual sentences concurrent with one another.  Total sentence to be imposed would therefore be 18 months' imprisonment. 

First Indictment

Count 1:	1 week's imprisonment.
Count 2:	4 months' imprisonment, concurrent.
Count 3:	1 week's imprisonment, concurrent.
Count 4:	2 weeks' imprisonment, concurrent.

Second Indictment

Count 1:	18 months' imprisonment, concurrent to the First Indictment.
Count 2:	18 months' imprisonment, concurrent.

Total: 18 months' imprisonment.

J. C. Gollop, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate R. Tremoceiro for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Mr Hendron, you are here to be sentenced on two Indictments, I am going to take the Second Indictment first because this contains the more serious charges of conspiracy to defraud.  The Court recognises that your return from the fraud may not have been very large but we take the view that your involvement in it was critical and the result was a serious loss for each of the companies concerned.  If the returns were higher, then the sentence itself might have been higher, but just as a main drug supplier relies on street dealers so those at the heart of this conspiracy to defraud relied on front men like you in order to persuade people to involve themselves with the scheme by buying the relevant tickets.  So the Court has given careful thought to the Crown's conclusions, but we take the view that the conclusions of 18 month's imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently, are correct.

2.        That takes us to the First Indictment.  We accept that normally that some of the offences in the First Indictment might have been treated with a financial penalty, certainly that is true of Count 1 and very possibly Counts 3 and 4.  It is clear that over a protracted period from December through to the end of January, the drinking that you were engaging in caused you to have these particular problems.  Now you say through your counsel that you have cured yourself of that over the 8 months or so in prison, and we hope that is right, although it may be that you should nonetheless seek some advice when eventually you come out of prison.  The Court thinks that the right way of dealing with Counts 1, 3 and 4 would be to impose a sentence of 1 week's imprisonment on Count 1, 1 week's imprisonment on Count 3 and 2 weeks on Count 4 and that although Counts 3 and 4 would run concurrently, they would normally be consecutive to Count 1.  We have given thought to the question of the contempt of Court.  Your counsel suggests that we ought to draw a distinction between those who commit a contempt of court by leaving the Island themselves and not facing sentence for the offences which later on they admit, or even if they did not admit them, and we ought to draw a distinction between those accused and people like you who have facilitated the breach of bail conditions.  The Court is in no doubt at all that you did facilitate them, you gave your phone together with the contact details, to a person, Fitzgerald, knowing that he was intending to leave the Island and breach his bail conditions, and that was the purpose of doing so and that is a serious contempt of Court.  We see no reason really to distinguish between that position and the position of AG-v-Donachie [2012] JRC 019 or AG-v-Stirton [2012] JRC 108 whose cases were in the bundle which your counsel passed up, and they received sentences of 4 months' imprisonment.  We think the Crown in moving for 6 months has moved for too long a period and we think 4 months' imprisonment would be right for Count 2 on that First Indictment, for the contempt of Court, and normally that would run consecutively and so in the normal course of events, 18 months on the Second Indictment plus 4 months and 3 weeks on the First Indictment would lead to a figure of 22 months and 3 weeks' imprisonment. 

3.        We have considered that total on totality grounds and also we have had regard to the time spent and also particularly to all the written material which is before the Court and in the circumstances we think we will make a further adjustment to the conclusions and we will order each of the sentences on the Counts on the Indictments to run concurrently, and so the effect of that is that you will go to prison for a total of 18 months. 

4.        We therefore sentence you on the First Indictment, Count 1; 1 week's imprisonment, Count 2; 4 months' imprisonment, Count 3; 1 week's imprisonment, Count 4; 2 weeks' imprisonment and on the Second Indictment, on Count 1; 18 months' imprisonment and Count 2; 18 months' imprisonment and each of those will operate concurrently, making a total of 18 months' imprisonment. 

Authorities

AG-v-Donachie [2012] JRC 019.

AG-v-Stirton [2012] JRC 108.

Harrison-v-AG [2004] JLR 111.

Magistrate's Court Guidelines on Public Order Offences.