‘Menace’ asks for jail for another trespass
Constant trespasser Margaret Mabel Dodds – publicly branded a “menace” – has given up her struggle to live in Christchurch and has “voluntarily” gone to prison.
“It’s the only place she feels safe,” her defence counsel Paul Johnson said in the Christchurch District Court when 59-year-old admitted another trespass charge.
He said Dodds requested the maximum three month jail term, but Judge Jane Farish said she could not give her the maximum term and jailed her for two months.
Last month, Dodds pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching her prison release condition not to associate with children aged 16 or younger. The court was told then that she had a conversation with a five-year-old boy at Princess Margaret Hospital,and approached and followed two young children.
She is awaiting sentencing on those charges on July 1, but came to court today for a defended hearing on the separate trespass charge.
Mr Johnson said she wanted to pleaded guilty instead.
He told the court: “I have got a rather unusual request. She has been trespassed from most of Christchurch including public transport. She finds herself being constantly followed by the police. She has given up.
“She waives the right to a pre-sentence report and requests to be sent to prison because it’s the only place she feels safe, for the maximum of three months.”
Judge Farish told Dodds: “I know you have considerable notoriety. As a result of that, and your significant offending history, I agree with what Mr Johnson said. It is increasingly difficult for you to go anywhere. You have been trespassed from all the places you would want to go to.”
Her future would require a change in attitude by Dodds and also some understanding about her personal problems by the organisations she visited.
She imposed two months prison, with no post-release conditions.
Dodds lives in the Seager Clinic at Princess Margaret Hospital where she is able to leave without supervision. She has been banned from parks, recreation centres, shopping malls, some streets, public traansport and schools. Notices about her have appeared on social media websites and on noticeboards in school staffrooms. She has a long history of assaulting her caregivers.
She has been described as a menace because of her history of confronting or assaulting children during her outings. She was jailed last year for an assault on a 10-year-old girl she pushed up against a tree.
Mr Johnson said that her latest trespass occurred when she was out and felt unwell. She went to an old people’s home in Beckenham to ask for help, but she was asked to leave. She left but police were called and arrested her when she came back.
Category: News
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