Television appearance leads to jail term
A home detention inmate who was spotted breaching his sentence on national television has gone to jail for a total of eight months.
The 35-year-old man was seen with his child in the audience when the Christchurch-made children’s Sunday morning television programme What Now went to air.
He had been allowed to leave his home that day to attend the Canterbury Museum. The man admitted that charge and another breach when he had left the home ahead of the allowable time.
He also pleaded guilty to a charge of shoplifting pillows and towels from the central Christchurch department store, Ballantynes. He had gone into the store with an empty Ballantynes bag and filled it and left the store three times with stolen goods worth a total of $523.
The theft was committed while he was serving a term of home detention for burglary.
The man has name suppression because he has a high profile trial scheduled. It is the second time he has been granted name suppression because of convictions in the lead-up to the trial.
When he pleaded guilty to the breaches and the theft on November 13, he was remanded in custody for sentence.
Defence counsel Andrew McCormick said at the Christchurch District Court sentencing that the man was embarrassed by the breaches. The man could not say why he committed the theft, but described it as “a brain explosion”. The man had now engaged in counselling and had done several courses.
Judge Kellar said the pre-sentence report described the man as “having a huge sense of entitlement – he is impatient to be seen as successful”.
He was seen as being quick to refer himself for treatment and counselling when facing further convictions, but this was regarded as “managing impressions rather than being genuinely motivated to change”.
His problems were assessed as drug abuse, his attitude towards offending, and “offending-supportive associates”. Judge Kellar told him: “Your potential for reoffending is assessed as very high. One seldom sees that.”
Category: News
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