Inferior Number Sentencing - Motoring - Breach of Orders.
[2020]JRC265
Royal Court
(Samedi)
21 December 2020
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Before :
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T. J. Le Cocq, Esq., Bailiff, and Jurats
Crill and Ronge.
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The Attorney General
-v-
N
Sentencing by the Inferior
Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charges:
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1 count of:
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Driving a vehicle dangerously, contrary to
Article 22(1) of the Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 (Count 1).
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1count of:
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Using a Motor Vehicle Without Third-Party
Insurance, contrary to Article 2(1) of the Motor Traffic (Third Party
Insurance) (Jersey) Law 1948. (Count 2).
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1 count of:
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Failure to comply with the conditions
subject to which a provisional licence is granted, contrary to Article 11(2)
of the Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 (Count 3).
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1 count of:
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Failure to notify the Department of Vehicle
Registration of the change of ownership of a motor vehicle, contrary to
Article 11(2) of the Motor Vehicle Registration (Jersey) Law, 1993
(Count 4).
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Age: 17.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
At approximately 2:23 on the morning
of Sunday 6th September 2020, two police officers saw the
Defendant’s car parked on Green Street in St Helier.
PC Barta got out of the marked
police car and approached the car, which had three occupants. PC Barta heard
the Defendant start his engine, and so opened the front passenger door of the
Seat and shouted “Police, stop”. The Defendant began to drive the Seat
away, pulling PC Barta in its direction.
He was concerned for his safety and screamed for the vehicle to
stop. The Defendant continued to
drive away and PC Barta lost hold of the door handle.
The officers followed the car with
their blue lights activated and sirens sounding. They pursued the Defendant westbound
through the tunnel and onto Albert Pier. The Defendant turned the Seat around and
exited Albert Pier. As he did so he
drove on the right-hand side of a traffic island on the wrong side of the road.
The Defendant then negotiated the
underpass roundabout and turned onto Victoria Avenue. The officers recorded that, approaching
Victoria Avenue, they drove at 60-mph through the 30-mph zone in order to keep
up with the Defendant. On Victoria
Avenue they reached speeds of 70-mph in pursuit of the Defendant. As the Defendant drove along Victoria
Avenue, he weaved from lane to lane which prevented the Police from driving
alongside him.
Approaching St Aubin, the Defendant
overtook another vehicle that was waiting at temporary traffic lights by some
roadworks. The Defendant drove
through St Aubin, which has a 20-mph limit. The officers noted that the Defendant
was driving faster than was safe.
They continued up Mont Les Vaux, down Mont Sohier and towards St
Brelade’s Bay. As the
Defendant drove down Mont Sohier, he overtook another vehicle travelling in the
same direction. At this point
the pursuit was ended by Police due to possible danger to other road users.
At the time of these offences, he
had been on probation for approximately seven months. The probation order, along with a total
of 180 hours’ community service, was imposed by the Youth Court on 14th
February, 2020 for three offences of breaking and entering dwelling houses and
possession of herbal cannabis. The
motoring offences put him in breach of these non-custodial sentences.
Details of Mitigation:
Guilty plea, youth, remorse,
support of family.
Previous Convictions:
One conviction for four offences
– breaking and entering and possession of herbal cannabis. Sentence
imposed by Youth Court on 14th February 2020, current offences put
the Defendant in breach of those non-custodial sentences.
Conclusions:
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Count 1:
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120 hours’ Community
Service Order, equivalent to 6 months’ youth detention, and a 12 month’
Probation Order. 2 years’ disqualification
from driving with a requirement to retake a test at conclusion of the disqualification
period.
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Count 2:
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70 hours’ Community
Service Order, equivalent to 2 months’ youth detention, and a 12 month’
Probation Order, 3 months’ disqualification from driving, concurrent.
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Count 3:
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A fine in the sum of £200 sought.
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Count 4:
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A fine in the sum of £200
sought.
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Total: 120
hours’ Community Service Order, equivalent to 6 months’ youth
detention, and a 12 month’ Probation Order; £400 fine. 2 years’ disqualification from
driving with a requirement to retake test at conclusion of disqualification
period.
Previous offences: Probation Order
to be discharged. Community Service
Order to continue, with the sentence for the motoring offences to be served
consecutively.
Taken together with the remaining
hours from the Youth Court sentence, the Defendant would have a total of 205
hours of community service to complete. (Imposed by Youth Court 14th
February 2020 – 85 hours left)
No order for costs sought.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
Conclusions granted.
Ms L. B. Hallam, Crown Advocate.
Advocate J. A. Dix for the Defendant...
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF:
1.
Stand up
please. You are to be sentenced
today for four motoring offences, three of them on 6th September
where you drove without insurance in breach of the terms of your provisional licence
and in a dangerous manner
2.
That
offending put you in breach of a Probation Order and a Community Service Order
imposed by the Youth Court on 14th February for three offences of
breaking and entering and one of possession of herbal cannabis.
3.
We do not
need to go into the detail of the facts of the current offending as these have
been set out thoroughly by the Crown and we have of course seen the CCTV
footage.
4.
Suffice to
say, that you were driving a car that you recently purchased. You knew that you were uninsured and
drove off to avoid arrest when a police officer sought to talk to you. This was very dangerous driving indeed
and you put an officer’s life in danger as well as potentially
endangering members of the public.
5.
The
offending from which you were on probation involved breaking and entering
occupied dwellings at night and some relatively minor theft.
6.
In our
view the custodial threshold has been passed in this case, but we must now turn
of course to consider the threshold under the Criminal Justice Young
Offenders (Jersey) Law 1994 and the test under Article 4(2) in so far as it
is irrelevant to our deliberations, it says:
“(2) A court shall not pass a sentence of youth detention
unless:
(b) …it
considers that no other method of dealing with the person appropriate because
it appears to the court that –
(i) the
person has a history of failure to respond to non-custodial penalties and is
unable or unwilling to respond to them.”
7.
You are in
breach of a Probation Order so there is, in our view, a basis in law for saying
that you have failed to respond to a non-custodial measure and we are entitled
to consider youth detention as one of the options before us.
8.
However,
we note your youth and your guilty plea.
We have read your letter of remorse which we accept is a genuine letter
and we have read with care the references provided for you which point to us to
a greater maturity than the offending before us suggests. It is clear, and we view this as
important, that you have a supportive family around you who will try to help
you not to re-offend.
9.
All these
things considered we think the court can offer you one further opportunity to
put your life on track and to stay out of prison. Accordingly, we propose to adopt the
conclusions of the Crown and you are sentenced as follows:
(i)
Count 1, 120
hours community service this is the equivalent of 6 months’ youth
detention coupled with a 12 month’ Probation Order. 2 years’ disqualification from
driving and there is a requirement that you have to take a test, although of
course that would be the case in any event.
(ii) Count 2, 70 hours community service equivalent
to 2 months’ youth detention and a 12 month’ Probation Order and 3
months’ disqualification from driving, all concurrent.
(iii) Count 3, a fine in the sum of £200 ordered.
(iv) Count 4, a fine in the sum of £200 ordered.
With regard to
those fines, 4 weeks’ youth detention in default of payment. We will allow you 30 days to make a
payment of those fines.
(v) We discharge the previous Probation Order but
we order the Community Service Order that you were subject to for the earlier
offences to continue and to be served consecutively which means that there is a
total of 120 hours community service and a 12 month’ Probation Order; £400
find and 2 years’ disqualification for the current offending and taken
with the time remaining for you to complete community service for the earlier
offending that makes a total of 205 hours community service to be
completed. The driving ban will be
from the date of today.
10. I want you to listen to me very carefully. If a police officer had been injured,
and that police officer would easily have been injured very badly by reason of
your stupidity, you would be looking at a sentence of youth detention now. You would be looking at being taken out
of this dock into custody and taken to prison. Do you understand me?
11. You are at a crossroads, it seems to us, and
you have choices to make, mature grown up choices. You will not, very probably, be offered
another chance. You should take
this as being your last chance to get it right. You are showing a worrying sign of
disregard for the law and disregard for the life and interests of your fellow
citizens. You may even be at the
top of a slippery slope and we really do not want to see that happen. You are young, you can build a satisfying
worthwhile and productive life with the help of those who care about you, with
the help of your family. Do you
understand me?
12. We do not expect to see you here again or
indeed before the Youth Court. If
we do, then the Court may feel you have simply run out of chances so please
take these words to heart, take them very, very seriously and do not let your
family down.
Authorities
Criminal Justice Young Offenders
(Jersey) Law 1994.