October 27, 2011

Jail term leaves offender muttering

By Anne Clarkson at the Rangiora Court House

A man left court muttering that he had received a sentence of a year-and-a-half in jail for $6.50.

He had apparently worked out how much jail time he would actually serve for a low-level burglary.

At a Christchurch District Court session held in the Rangiora Court House, Lyall Anzac Hetariki, 40, was being sentenced on a charge of burglary after he jemmied a window in a house and took a baseball cap and $6.50 out of a child?s wallet.

Defence counsel Rupert Glover said Hetariki suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and drug and alcohol dependency. He said he had trouble coming to the grips of reality in his everyday life.

He said he was seeking either money or alcohol in the house, and he was a chronic social nuisance who was very difficult to help. His medical condition was being treated, but he needed some kind of intervention to stop his offending.

Judge Colin Doherty said Hetariki was a recidivist threat to society with 130 previous convictions?? from driving, to assaults and burglary.

He said he needed to protect society for a while, and sentenced Hetariki to two years eight months prison. He said rehabilitation programmes for him would be organised by the parole board.

Police had the $6.50 taken from the child and it was to be returned to him, he said.