Menacing woman admits following children
A 59-year-old woman with a history of assaulting or threatening children has now admitted breaching her prison release conditions by approaching children. Margaret Mabel Dodds has been banned from approaching anyone aged 16 or under as a result of her previous offending which led to her being jailed last year.
She was released from prison last September and given a copy of the order, but Community Probation has now prosecuted her for approaching and following children aged 11 and 6 at the Princess Margaret Hospital cafe on February 4, and having a conversation with a boy aged 5 on January 22.
Probation told Judge Geoffrey Ellis in the Christchurch District Court today that the two children had been upset by being followed.
Judge Ellis remanded Dodds on bail to July 1 for sentence, and imposed a bail condition that she not have contact with anyone aged 16 or under. She will also have to stay at the Seagar Clinic at the hospital where she is a resident, as long as she is accepted there.
The court was unable to impose a bail curfew at the clinic. Dodds was jailed last year for an assault on a 10-year-old girl she pushed up against a tree.
She later blocked the path of a boy and accosted two of his friends. All three boys ran away and told their parents.
Dodds has a borderline personality disorder and she was to undertake psychological counselling as part of her sentence last year. She is not held in a secure facility in the hospital and is able to go out as she wishes.
She has been banned from parks, recreation centres, shopping malls, some streets, public transport, and schools. Notices about her have appeared on social media websites, and on noticeboards in school staffrooms. She has a history of assaulting her caregivers.
The judge today called for a pre-sentence report to consider her suitability for a home or community detention sentence.
Category: News
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