July 16, 2010

Taggers face clean-up, and big bills

By Anne Clarkson

Positive feedback on social networking website Bebo encouraged a 19-year-old to continue his tagging until his damage bill totalled more than $11,000.

Judge David Saunders described the offending as pathetic as he sentenced Jacob Bennett.

Defence counsel Claire Yardley said the police had spent many hours photographing all the tagging to work out the amount for the reparation report on Bennett and his co-offender, Symon Helmling, aged 18.

Bennett has been ordered to pay back $11,817 in instalments of $100 a week.

Helmling’s total was $4984 and he will be paying it at $50 a week.

Judge Saunders told Helmling at the Christchurch District Court sentencing that the tagging annoyed people who took pride in their city. It cost Christchurch ratepayers $1 million a year to remove tags.

He ordered Helmling to do 140 hours of community work and recommended that he be assigned to a work group that was cleaning up tagging.

Defence counsel Gil Ferguson acknowledged that the teenager’s behaviour was mindless and stupid and said he was embarrassed to be in court. She said the pre-sentence report showed no drug or alcohol issues and assessed him as a low risk of reoffending.

Mrs Yardley said Bennett came across as an intelligent, polite and civilised young man. Tagging was an urban curse in the eastern suburbs where he lived and Rawhiti Domain had been “hammered”.

He had not touched a spray can since he had been caught “and doesn’t plan to again”, she said.

He had a previous conviction for tagging for which he got 40 hours of community work.

“It is pathetic, isn’t it?” Judge Saunders asked Bennett.

“I realise that now, Sir,” he replied.

He noted that Bennett had been encouraged to go tagging by positive feedback on the social networking site, Bebo.

He ordered Bennett to do 200 hours of community work to clean up graffiti, and pay $500 reparations within 28 days from his savings, as well as the weekly instalments he now faces. He will also be on community detention and subject to a curfew for the next four months.

Both taggers have written letters of apology and now face going through a restorative justice process where they will meet some of the victims of their offending.

“It is time it came to an end. People take pride in the Garden City,” said Judge Saunders.