Inferior Number Sentencing – conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace – malicious damage – resisting arrest.

[2013]JRC092

Royal Court

(Samedi)

15 May 2013

The Attorney General

-v-

James Andrew Charles Kean

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following guilty pleas to the following charges:

Age:  23.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

Intoxicated, Kean ransacked his own flat in the small hours of the morning, breaking a window and ejecting the contents, including a sofa, into the road below.  Flooded the flats below.  Young family evacuated from the only other occupied flat.  Road closed and Fire Service involved.  Four hours of negotiation.  Many thousands of pounds of damage to building, contents and cars parked below. 

Details of Mitigation:

Young man struggling with diagnosis of serious illness and breakup of relationship.  Engaged well with probation during remand, reducing assessment of his risk of reoffending from high to low.

Previous Convictions:

Four UK convictions and several Parish Hall warnings for not-dissimilar conduct since 2010.

Conclusions:

12 month Probation Order sought.

Total: 100 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 4 months’ imprisonment, together with a 12 month Probation Order

Exclusion Order from 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 7^th category licensed premises for a period of 12 months from date of release from prison sought.

Compensation Order sought.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Serious offences which could have caused really serious injury or killed someone.  Conclusions as to community service and probation granted.

12 month Probation Order made.

Total: 100 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 4 months’ imprisonment, together with a 12 month Probation Order.

Compensation Order made in the sum of £780 (to be divided between the victims proportionately) to be paid at a rate of £15 per week or 2 months’ imprisonment in default.

No Exclusion Order made.

D. J. Hopwood, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate G. A. H. Baxter for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        You are here to be sentenced on an Indictment containing three counts of malicious damage, one count of conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace and one count of resisting arrest.  This was one continuing incident over the night of the 1^st and 2^nd January.  As a result of your personal distress on account of a number of reasons, you became drunk, and you lost control of yourself.  You caused serious damage to the building in which you lived and to two motor cars parked outside.  This conduct was completely unacceptable.  It extends a criminal record which began in 2011, when you were aged 21, and the Court has a jurisdiction to send you to prison for offences of this kind. 

2.        We are not going to send you to prison today but if you were to continue this kind of behaviour you can be absolutely sure that the Court will be actively considering such a conclusion.  Today should be a wake-up call for you.  In this case you could have caused really serious injury to anyone who was passing by, from the glass that was shattered from the window, from the sofa that was thrown out; you could have killed somebody if there had been anybody underneath.  It was lucky for you that you did not and it was not down to any care on your part because you did not know.  So it was completely unacceptable conduct. 

3.        On the other hand there are the matters which are set out in the social enquiry report and we have taken into account everything that your counsel has said and also, of course, taken into account the conclusions of the Crown.  And we have decided that it is right that you should be placed on probation for a period of 12 months and we are going to also make orders that you perform community service in accordance with the Crown’s conclusions. 

4.        On Count 1; 50 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 1 month’s imprisonment, Count 2; 100 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 4 months’ imprisonment, Count 3; 50 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 1 month’s imprisonment, Count 4; 50 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 1 month’s imprisonment, on Count 5; 40 hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 1 week’s imprisonment, and all those operate concurrently, making a total of 100 hours’ Community Service. 

5.        I must warn you that if you do not perform the community service or if there is any report back to the Court because you have not performed the terms of the Probation Order, as will be explained to you by the Probation Office, then the Court is free to look at the offending which you have committed and sentence you afresh and so this performance of community service is something you must do. 

6.        We are not going to impose, in the facts and circumstances of this case an Exclusion Order, we do not think it would be helpful on the facts of this case, but we are going to order compensation to be paid.  This is a difficult area because you do not have the means to pay a substantial Compensation Order and of course those means may change.  The Order that we are going to make is that you should pay a total of £780 compensation, which should be payable at no less than £15 per week, and there will be a default sentence of 2 months’ imprisonment if you do not pay it.  The compensation will be divided amongst those who have made claims for compensation proportionately on the assumption that the claims that they have made are accurate. 

7.        I draw to your attention that under the terms of the Law if you should find your circumstances change, then you can apply to the Court to have a variation to the terms of compensation.  It is very important particularly as you are on a seasonal employment at the moment so come the end of the season I hope you will find other employment, but if for any reason you did not, do not just ignore it, come back to Court because it will be necessary to make changes.  You are required to pay at £15 per week until the £780 is paid, you can pay more if you find you can, but you are required to pay no less than that figure and if you do not pay the Compensation Order you will be serving a prison sentence.  Of course nothing that has been said in relation to the Compensation Order payable now prevents those who have suffered loss from bringing any civil claim against you.  That is not being dealt with in this Court at all. 

8.        These were serious offences and you should consider yourself lucky that the Court and the Crown have taken the view that, in this case, a personalised sentence which operates as a wake-up call is being imposed. 

Authorities

Magistrate’s Court Sentencing Guidelines.

AG-v-Le Flock (unreported 31 January 1997).

AG-v-Pereira [2011] JRC 182.

AG-v-Phillips [2009] JRC 193.

AG-v-Coleman [2012] JRC 137.

AG-v-Mears [2008] JRC 217.

AG-v-Le Geyt [2010] JRC 007.