Offender breaches Home Detention sentence less than 24 hours later!

15th June 2018

The government wants to reduce the prison population by 30%, but when an offence involves violent crime it should never be used as an alternative to a prison sentence!

Sensible Sentencing Trust child abuse spokesperson Karrin Coates said “We must get tougher on crime, especially when the offenders are serious violent criminals. A 20-year-old Waikato man who cannot be named for legal reasons, was released on Home Detention for crimes that should have seen him locked up behind bars, off our streets and away from the innocent victims the New Zealand Justice System should be protecting.”

This 20-year-old man has six previous charges; male assaults female, one with a weapon and five to both his partner at the time and other female victims. This violent offender assaulted his own 9-month-old baby boy because he was grizzly due to teething. The baby boy was hospitalised with lacerations to the face, around his nose, both sides of the head, he had multiple cheekbone fractures, and a torn bottom lip and tongue, after the offender forced something solid in his mouth to stop the baby crying.

The mother who tried to help her son, was threatened with being burnt with a hot pan. The offender then kicked her multiple times in the hips and shoulders, and whilst she lay on the ground, he demanded she feed the baby.

This violent offender who committed horrific crimes against his own child and partner, was sentenced to 9 months Home Detention and 160 hours community service. Within 24 hours he breached his conditions by going to the local pub!!

Karrin went on to say “How can a violent offender with previous assault charges, who beats our most vulnerable, our most precious innocent gifts, his own child, be allowed to walk our streets? What about the safety of the mother and the safety of this poor innocent child? Who is taking care of them, ensuring they are safe? It is good to see Corrections trying to have his sentence cancelled and replaced with a term of imprisonment, however we say given the violence of his background, he should not have been given a Home detention sentence in the first place! Judges need to use the tools they have been given and impose sentences that reflect society's abhorrence of the violence inflicted by these types of offenders!”

How many risks are the Government willing to take with innocent victims lives, in the effort to reduce the prison population?

The safety of our children and our community must always be the paramount consideration!!

ENDS

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