A thief who stole garden equipment from Caerphilly homes has been fined £75 by magistrates, while another man was fined £100 for dropping a cigarette.
Darryll Pursey, 44, of Half Acre Court, Pontypandy, Caerphilly, appeared at Caerphilly Magistrates’ Court on Monday September 3 and admitted five charges of theft. Nine other offences were also taken into consideration.
The court was told that between August 6 and August 16, Pursey had stolen a variety of objects from people’s gardens including fibre optic lights, garden furniture, wooden fence panels and a plastic stone-effect Buddha.
Pursey was fined £75, ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £15.
The £175 total Pursey has to pay is in stark contrast to the £215 a Pontllanfraith man was recently ordered to pay for dropping a cigarette butt.
Ian Rogers, of Clos y Goran, Pontllanfraith, was issued with a fixed penalty notice of £75 by the council after he threw the cigarette butt from the driver’s window of his vehicle.
After failing to pay the fixed penalty notice, the case was taken to court by the council.
On August 20, Abergavenny Magistrates’ Court handed him a fine of £100, and he was also ordered to pay £100 in prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge. The case was proved in Rogers’ absence.
Asked if Gwent Police was disappointed with the sentence given to the garden thief, a spokeswoman for the force said: “Our job as a police force is to investigate every incident that is reported to us, identify offenders and put them before the courts.
“We don’t have a say on what sentence or fine is given. A lot of factors are considered by the courts before handing out any punishment, and we have to accept their decision.”
This is the sort of (Dis) proportionality everyone has come to expect from the courts.
The problem of course is the failure of the Magistrates to exercise the discretion they have in such cases, they CHOOSE to inflict draconian penalties on offenses which they consider ` Civic` offenses, litter, dog fouling and other breaches of local bylaws, because, they consider that the penalties they hand down will be supported, normally they are of course, but, the editor has chosen in this case to lay out a comparison between serious house burglaries and thefts and dropping a ` fag end`. When it is put together in this way the credibility of the Courts system of applying sentences and the lack of common sense of magistrates, and those advising them is highlighted.
Clearly theft is more socially acceptable than smoking. Seems somewhat typical of late, violent assault does not compare so well to being naughty on twitter either.
This case tells us a lot about the deterioration in the judicial system. I do not condone littering which should attract a fine but this offence does not remotely compare with burglary. Burglary is trespass added to theft and is extremely distressing to the victim. A prison sentence should be mandatory.
I cannot comment on the particulars of these two separate cases, we do not have the benefit of all the evidence, but there are many similar stories from up and down the country which lead me to the, reasonable, conclusion that our court service is deeply flawed. This does not mean that the magistrates are at fault, despite appearances to the contrary. I spoke recently to a Justice of the Peace of many years standing who told me that “a magistrate today is a mere cipher” the word used in the sense of being a nonentity.
The whole system is defective and I have huge sympathy with the police who are there to maintain law and order. When they do catch a burglar, or other criminal, after much investigation and hours spent amassing evidence, the courts often fail to deal with the offender in a way that the public would expect. As the police spokesperson says, “We don’t have a say on what sentence or fine is given. A lot of factors are considered by the courts before handing out any punishment, and we have to accept their decision.” It is not a function, nor should it be, of the police to hand down judgement but the court system and the advice and parameters that magistrates operate under need an urgent overhaul.
Is being ` naughty` on twitter an offense dealt with by magistrates?
God forbid if it is.
If Conspiracy and lying, defamation and libelous statements on twitter out rate serious assault then I agree with Helen that that would be another typical example of disproportionality in the legal system
I think the clue is where he failed to pay the original fine. Rightly so.
There is NO justification for the ` difference` to the penalty issues by the court for a `minor` offense of littering, and the one of theft and burglary, even regardless, that it was not paid ` on demand` of the Caerphilly council.
The person may have had a defence. he may have financial problems, he may not have the ability to pay in which case the magistrates should consider an alternative to a punitive financial penalty, who knows?. but what is positive is what has already been said and the fine is totally disproportionate to the elledged incident.
One could stand on Cardiff Road Caerphilly Day in Day out, evening in evening out and observe hundreds of people committing the same offence of dropping ` fag ends`. One could do the same at the Council Offices, other public and private places of work, but, the authorities know that to issue fixed penalty tickets to all guilty parties would attract critisism. One can also observe St Martins School Pupils dropping all sorts of litter during the lunch breaks in Caerphilly town, but, when was the last littering ticket issued to one of these culprits?
I think the over the top, disproportionate punitive action by Caerphilly council , propped up by the magistrates is appalling when one sets these two cases side by side and it is totally unjustifiable.
the only problem i see is that the fines for the theft are way to small in my opinion the fine for theft should be
value of stolen items + £150 for ever item stolen