11-time tagger narrowly avoids jail
A Christchurch tagger caught for the 11th time has received a telling off from the judge – but still no jail time.
Judge Tony Couch said he was giving Corbin Richard Ellis a final warning for yet another conviction for intentional damage.
He said he had initially thought it was time for a jail sentence to be imposed on the unemployed 23-year-old who has had two previous sentences of community detention, and has breached community work sentences four times in the last three years.
“It seems to me that nothing short of that is likely to deter you or make you realise how appalling and anti-social this behaviour is,” he told Ellis.
But after hearing from defence counsel Cindy Lee, he relented and gave him “a last chance”.
She said community work would be a way of making him pay back the community for the harm he had done, and community detention would be punitive by restricting him to his home all weekend.
A rehabilitation programme could help him change his attitude and stop his anti-social behaviour. She asked the judge to take into account his young age, and the continuing support of his mother.
She said his latest arrest had been a wake-up call for Corbin.
Judge Couch replied: “I suspect that has been said on every other occasion, but he’s not waking up.”
Ellis was seen by a passing police patrol using a black marker pen to write graffiti on a bus shelter in North Parade, Shirley, early on January 7.
He was then found with spray cans used for graffiti.
“In isolation, this would be a totally unacceptable piece of vandalism,” said the judge. “But you have 10 previous convictions for similar offending.”
Community detention had not deterred him in the past. It was clear he was out around the city equipped to commit these offences.
He asked Ellis if the house where he lived with his mother was covered in graffiti.
Ellis said it wasn’t, because he did not tag people’s houses.
“So you are just prepared to damage things that belong to all of us, and not things that belong to your family?” said the judge.
He rejected Ellis’ claim in his pre-sentence interview that he “didn’t harm anyone”.
“He harmed the entire community and he has no insight into that. How can I bring home to this man that this is totally unacceptable, anti-social behaviour?” he said.
Perhaps Ellis should write a letter to the editor of The Press apologising to the whole city, he suggested.
He imposed three months of community detention at his mother’s address, 100 hours of community work, and supervision for nine months with special conditions. He will have to pay $130 reparations for the damage he did.
Category: Focus
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