Jersey Unreported Judgments

Inferior Number Sentencing - Drugs - possession and supply - Class A and Class B

[2020]JRC243

Royal Court

(Samedi)

19 November 2020

The Attorney General

-v-

K

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

Age:  17. 

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

The defendant, who was 16 at the time of offending, was subject of a search of his bedroom in his accommodation.  5.88 grams of MDMA was found in a black tub on his desk and 1.35 grams of MDMA and 0.925 grams of cannabis resin were found in a black pouch in his jacket.  

The defendant's phone was analyzed and messages indicative of supply were found.  When interviewed the defendant confirmed he used MDMA personally and initially denied supplying MDMA but then answered no comment to further questions about what he was going to do with the MDMA.

Details of Mitigation:

Prosecution: the defendant has the benefit of an early guilty plea, was 16 at the time the offending took place.  Accordingly, the defendant's youth was significant mitigation.

Defence: referred to the personal mitigation available to him as set out in Social Enquiry Report.  Defence also noted the delay between the initial arrest of the defendant and the matter coming to Court. 

Previous Convictions:

The defendant has previous convictions for a variety of offences with youth court appearances commencing in 2018 when the defendant was 15.  The defendant has 9 convictions for 45 offences which include offences against the person and property, theft and kindred offences, public order offences, offences relating to police/courts/prisons and two drug offences.

The indicted offending occurred whilst the defendant was subject to a probation order made 30^th April, 2019 (imposed by the Youth Court).  The order finished during December 2019 thus the defendant breached the order by the indicted offending.  Due to further subsequent offending a further Probation Order was put in place in July 2020 which is in force until January 2021

Conclusions:

Total:  240 hours' Community Service Order, equivalent to 18 months' Youth Detention.

Forfeiture and destruction of the drugs sought.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted.

Ms E. L. Hollywood, Crown Advocate.

Advocate J. W. R. Bell for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE COMMISSIONER:

1.        You have pleaded guilty to three offences, all committed on 29^th November; possession with intent to supply 4.5 grams of MDMA; possession of 2.73 grams of MDMA and possession of a small amount of cannabis.  Obviously the first is the most serious one. 

2.        You were only 16 at the time of this offending and the relevant article of the Criminal Justice (Young Offenders) (Jersey) Law 2014 says that the Court shall not sentence you to youth detention unless satisfied there is no other method of dealing with you on any one of three grounds.  Now, on the face of it, one of those grounds is certainly satisfied, namely that you have a history of failure to respond to non-custodial penalties, because the Crown's summary shows that you have breached probation orders ten times between January 2019 and March 2020.  So, it is clear that probation orders so far have had very little effect on you and in any event you say you are not willing to be put on probation again.  So, clearly it is open to the Court to conclude that that ground is satisfied, but the real issue for us is whether we consider there is no alternative to youth detention and certainly given that background one might expect that youth detention is now the right sentence. 

3.        Advocate Bell has put forward mitigation on your part. 

(i)        First and foremost, you were only 16 at the time.  That is a young age and the Court never wishes to send people of that age to youth detention unless it is unavoidable. 

(ii)       We have had the benefit of a very full and helpful background report and this has disclosed much of the difficult background you have had.  We note in particular that according to the report your family has had nine different social workers up until August of 2019.  You were placed in the care of the Children's Service in 2018 because your mother could not cope.  After a period in various residential homes you were allowed back to live with your mother and your brothers and sisters in April 2019 but you were then returned to the residential placement a couple of days before this offending.  As we say you have had apparently nine different social workers up until August 2019 and I am sad to say you have had a further three social workers between August 2019 and July 2020.  It is therefore not surprising that you are reported by the probation report to have "no trust in professionals and appear fed up with social workers due to the significant number of changes in social work staff".  So, we do take that into account in your favour. 

(iii)      This case has been subject to delay.  It is virtually a year since the offending.  It is a straight-forward case and it is extremely unfortunate that it has taken so long for it to come to court.  It is often said that the prosecution of young offenders needs to be dealt with speedily so that they can relate what happens to them to what they did and that has not happened in this case.  It has been hanging over you for far too long and we do take that into account in your favour. 

(iv)      Very importantly, there are signs of a change of attitude on your part.  We very much hope that that is genuine and that you will take advantage of that if you are given a chance.  In this respect it will be very important that you try and rid yourself of the influence of those who are a bad influence upon you. 

4.        Putting these matters together and the other mitigation which appears from the papers before us, we have just been persuaded that we can agree with the Crown's conclusions which, on the face of it, appeared somewhat lenient.  So, we do not think it necessary on this occasion to send you to youth detention but we are not willing to reduce the number of hours of community service.

5.        The sentence of the Court is as follows: on Count 1, Community Service Order of 240 hours which is equivalent to 18 months' youth detention.  On Count 2, 120 hours' Community Service, concurrent, equivalent of 6 months' youth detention and no penalty on the third count.

6.        We order the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs.

7.        I want you to understand how lucky you have been.  As we have made clear, you might well have expected to go to youth detention for what you did, but we are not doing that; we are giving you a chance.  We hope very much that you will take advantage of it, but to do that you must first of all comply with the Community Service; that means turning up on time, when required and working hard whilst you are there, because if you do not carry out the Community Service properly, or if you commit any further offences you will come back here and you will be sentenced to youth detention, because this is really quite a chance you are being given.  So please taken advantage of it.  We do not want to see you here again.  We want you to make a success of your life but it is down to you. 

Authorities

Criminal Justice (Young Offenders) (Jersey) Law 2014. 

AG v Gabb [2020] JRC 107

AG v Gill [2018] JRC 196

AG v G [2018] JRC 166

Rimmer v AG [2001] JLR 373

AG v Buesnel [1996] JLR 265