Last chance for ‘menace’ who must stay away from children
A last chance was given to a woman previously branded a “menace” and banned from being near children, in the Christchurch District Court today.
Margaret Mabel Dodds, 59, breached a condition of her prison release condition to not be near children under 16 on November 28.
Judge Gary MacAskill said Dodds was well known to court, and continued to be a risk to the community, and was at a high risk of going back to jail.
He sentenced her to intensive supervision for two years with conditions that she attend counselling and treatment as recommended by her probation officer.
Judge MacAskill warned Dodds that if she came back to court again for this type of offending, the court would have no alternative but to send her back to jail.
Dodds is a resident of the Seager Clinic at Princess Margaret Hospital, and has been banned from parks, recreation centres, shopping malls, some streets, public transport, and schools.
There have been notices about her on social media websites, and on notice boards in school staffrooms.
Her record includes breaches of trespass orders, and repeated assaults on her caregivers.
She was jailed for six months in July after admitting an assault charge which had previously been a charge of assaulting a child, a charge of disorderly behaviour that was likely to cause violence, and two charges of being unlawfully on properties.
The court was told that she had pinned a 10-year-old girl against a tree after blocking her way as the child rode her scooter on a Cashmere walkway.
Category: Focus
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