Jersey Unreported Judgments

Inferior Number Sentencing - breach of Community Service Order.

[2014]JRC193

Royal Court

(Samedi)

10 October 2014

The Attorney General

-v-

Christopher Anthony Howard

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, on a breach of a Community Service Order imposed on 2^nd May, 2014, on the following charges:

Age:  28.

Plea: Guilty.

Conclusions:

Breach of Community Service Order: 7 weeks' imprisonment

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Breach of Community Service Order: 7 weeks' imprisonment.

Community Service Order discharged.

C. M. M. Yates, Esq., Crown Advocate.

The Appellant appeared in person.

JUDGMENT

THE BAILIFF:

1.        We have listened carefully to the statement you have read to us.  We have to say that much of it related to the fact that you clearly feel very aggrieved at the fact that you were prosecuted for the assault after such a long time and you feel it was an offence you did not commit.  But the fact is that you pleaded guilty to it and you have been sentenced and we cannot interfere with that.  We have to begin with the situation that the sentence has been passed.  You have to serve the sentence and you were warned at the time that you must comply with the community service. 

2.        Now in our view the community service team are entitled to have rules which must be obeyed even if offenders do not like them, because the team has to manage something in the order of 90-100 offenders; so discipline is necessary and they are entitled to enforce it. 

3.        You have said that, at the first meeting with Mr Le Marrec, he said that he was going to make life extremely difficult for you in carrying out the order.  This is strongly denied by Mr Le Marrec and he has read us his notes of the meeting.  We are quite satisfied he said nothing of the sort and that the approach of the community service team is to try and help people complete community service, not to try and make it difficult for them to do so, so that they are breached; because every breach is a failure of the system as opposed to a success on the part of the system.  So we think there is no likelihood that the mind-set of the team is that they want people to fail. 

4.        We are quite satisfied that there was a breach in this case.  You did not do what you were told and you should have.  The question then is what to do now.  You were sentenced to a total of 2 months and 1 week's imprisonment.  You have carried out 30 out of the 110 hours although some of that was said to be poorly carried out.  We are going to make a deduction for some of the work you carried out and, adopting a broad approach, we are going to impose a prison sentence of 7 weeks' imprisonment. 

5.        We also revoke the Community Service Order. 

Authorities

AG-v-Howard [2014] JRC 102C.