Jailed teen gets some judicious advice
A 19-year-old has ended up spending four weeks in custody for some relatively minor offending because he failed – as the judge put it – to “take care of business”.
Benjamin Thomas Tapper-Norris admits that he had issues about narcotics when it all happened a year ago.
Matters that could have been wrapped up in a couple of weeks have dragged on because he has failed to come to court, didn’t turn up for his probation interview, and sentencing had to be delayed.
He now says he is “clean” of drugs, has been re-establishing relationships with his family, and wants to go to Hagley Community College and university.
But Judge Jane McMeeken said she was concerned he was making all these plans in a situation where he faced sentencing on burglary and theft charges, breaches of bail, and cancellation of a community work sentence where he only attended for half an hour out of 150 hours.
He had not taken care of business, she told him. “There is no point in making all these plans if you are going to be locked up. You got yourself locked up for the last two weeks – it’s madness.”
Tapper-Norris had also spent two weeks in custody when he was first arrested.
He had argued that he had difficulties attending court because he had no stable address and kept losing paperwork, had issues about getting time off work, and had been “consuming a lot of narcotics”.
He told the court had had been unable to do his community work sentence because he had injured his wrist. He said he had provided medical certificates to the Probation Service about that.
Judge McMeeken said his offending amounted to being found in an abandoned building, and stealing $8 worth of food.
The sentencing was delayed for an hour so that Probation could prepare a short probation report, which recommended intensive supervision. Defence counsel Claire Hislop said Tapper-Norris realised that he would have to comply with the sentence or face a term of imprisonment.
Judge McMeeken imposed 12 months intensive supervision with judicial monitoring – Tapper-Norris will be back in court every three months for the judge to get a report on his progress – as well as assessment and counselling for psychological, alcohol and drug issues as required.
She warned Tapper-Norris: “If you decide you are not going to do this, you will go to jail. It is your choice, it is your life. How it turns out depends on the decisions you make.”
Category: News
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