Woman wins appeal, loses liberty

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 4

Woman wins appeal, loses liberty

A woman sobbed with her head in her hands in the High Court yesterday and was taken by the arm and led up the stairs to the cells after her appeal against fines on shoplifting charges was upheld, but a prison term substituted.

Anne Jennings, aged 27, an unemployment beneficiary, had her fines of $lOO on each of two shoplifting charges quashed and a term of two months imprisonment imposed instead. Jennings was fined $2OO by Judge McAloon in the District Court on July 14 after being convicted on charges of stealing a packet of Fresh Bake Cookies valued at $1.74 from the Hereford Dairy on June 8 and stealing a jacket valued at $9.95 from Shoppers’ Paradise in High Street on July 4. At the hearing of the appeal Mr D. J. H. Stringer appeared for Jennings and Mr B. M. Stanaway for the Crown. Mr Justice Holland said that Jennings had first appeared before the Court in December, 1976, when she was convicted and discharged on a charge of theft.

In February, 1977, she was convicted on two charges of forgery, one of theft and one of misleading a Social Welfare Officer. She was put on probation for 18 months. Before the sentence was imposed Jennings was remanded to Sunnyside Hos-

pital for a medical report which stated that she was suffered from an “organic delusional and affective syndromoe — probably caused by the abuse of amphetamines.” It was recommended that Jennings be referred to the Alcohol and Drug Assessment centre and she had also been offered assistance by another clinic. The probation officer’s report indicated that a large number of welfare workers and agencies had endeavoured to assist Jennings. Itstated that she was unwilling to accept the help of any of the welfare agencies other than her church. The probation officer had concluded that “consideration was given to having Jennings assessed for community service but she seems manifestly unsuited because of her history of drug taking, lack of reliability and inconsistency. Her records showed that she was very demanding and took up a great deal of time and the conclusion was that probation, with its access to a wide variety of agencies, could do little to help her.

“She exhibits similar problems and behavioural traits to those recorded previously and shows little sign of personal growth. There seems little to indicate that Jennings would gain anything from being placed on probation again,” the report had concluded. When imposing sentence,

Judge McAloon had said: “In the light of what you have told counsel I am not prepared to have the time of the probation officer wasted. I will therefore impose a fine.” Mr Justice Holland said that he was satisfied that a fine was inappropriate. Jennings was on the unemployment benefit, had debts of $5OO and no savings.

It was unrealistic to expect her to pay a fine, particularly as it appeared that the excuse for stealing was that the Department of Social Welfare provided her with inadequate to live

Certainly no-one should be sent to prison solely for the reason that she could not pay a fine. In this case the District Court Judge chose to be merciful but the sentence imposed was one incapable of being carried out.

“There is not the slightest doubt that a person who appears on two charges of shoplifting, having previous convictions for theft must realise that there is a risk of imprisonment,” his Honour said. One must have considerable sympathy for this unfortunate woman, who is unable to cope with society. There is, however, a limit to what society can stand in relation to those who reject assistance and where that happens it is the sad duty of the Court to see that a person is punished,” said his Honour.