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Court signals tougher approach for bail breaches
On a day when Christchurch people are meeting to discuss crime in the city, the courts have signalled a much tougher stance for people breaching their bail conditions.
The new approach is already having an effect. People not abiding by bail rules set by the courts are already finding themselves being locked up for longer.
Christchurch District Court Judge David Saunders made it clear in the city?s main police court today that bail breaches would not be dealt with easily or leniently.
He told one 34-year-old publican that bailing him today ?would be sending the wrong message to him and the community?.
The man was on bail for a charge of intentionally injuring someone and had been bailed on condition he not consume alcohol.
Police say they were called to the hotel he owns by his staff who were concerned about his intoxicated behaviour. When they arrived, the man assaulted three police officers, including head-butting one of them.
He stood in the dock with blood on his clothes and needing medical attention himself.
Judge Saunders sent him back to the cells and told him his bid for renewed bail would be considered later in the day, if there was time.
He said he had spent a lot of time on Monday considering bail applications for people who had committed breaches over the weekend. ?I said then that the court would take a much stronger view about people who breach their bail.?
Soon after the publican?s case, a 23-year-old unemployed man also appeared on a bail breach with a charge related to an assault in central Christchurch. He had also failed to appear at a court session on April 28.
He was remanded to a pre-depositions conference but Judge Saunders told him he would stay in custody. ?The court has already made it quite clear that people who don?t appear at court or offend while on bail must expect to have their liberty curtailed.?
