Periodic detention for woman who took yacht

Press, 16 July 1986, Page 20

Periodic detention for woman who took yacht

Periodic detention for four months, coupled with supervision for 12 months, was the sentence given by Judge Paterson to a solo mother earlier convicted on charges of stealing a yacht, outboard motor, and trailer, valued at $14,500, receiving a car, valued at $15,000, and intentionally damaging a $2OOO plate glass window.

In the District Court yesterday Mr J. J. Brandts-Giesen, counsel for Elizabeth Ann MacFarlane, said his client, a virtual first offender, became immersed in this serious offending without fully realising what she had let herself in for.

MacFarlane, aged 34, a mother of two, had told the police she wanted to have a sailing holiday around the Sounds. Mr Brandts-Giesen said his client had not been the instigator of the boat’s theft, but she had gone

along with it, and had allowed her property to be used for its storage.

MacFarlane had not known initially that the $15,000 car had been converted, although she had continued to use it after finding out. It was claimed by the defendant that a friend had driven the car to her address and told her to look after it, and to use it, while he was in Australia.

MacFarlane was also for sentence on a charge of intentionally damaging a $2OOO plate glass window of a dairy.

Mr Brandts-Giesen said this was a spur-of-the-moment action taken because the proprietor of the dairy owed money to a friend. Because she was in no position to pay her share of compensation, the Judge made no order. The offences took place between March and May. PSYCHIATRIC REPORT A psychiatric report is

to be obtained on a man, aged 24, facing eight charges of indecently assaulting two girls, aged seven, and 11, between January, 1985, and this month.

Interim suppression of the name of the defendant, represented by Mr M. J. Glue, was continued. The defendant was remanded in custody to July 29. INJURY CHARGE Bail was set at $2OOO for a man facing a charge related to an incident in which a knife was thrown at a woman in a house in Linwood on Monday afternoon. No plea was entered by Alec Valoaga, aged 37, a fish splitter. He is charged that with reckless disregard for the safety of others he injured Denise Jane Burgess. Valoaga was remanded to July 22. Although bail was not opposed, a surety was sought by Sergeant J. W.

Dwyer. BENCH WARRANT

A warrant was issued for the arrest of a man who failed to appear for sentence on two burglary offences in which property worth almost $ll,OOO was stolen.

When Walter Alexander Tapp, aged 17, unemployed, did not respond to a call for his appearance in the dock, counsel, Ms D. M. Shirtcliff, said it appeared her client had decided to defer sentencing.

Tapp had been at court earlier in the afternoon and had read his probation report which, she said, had not made encouraging reading. “After making him aware of the various sentencing options available he must have decided to defer the sentencing procedure,” she said. Miss Shirtcliff, on her own request, was given leave to withdraw as Tapp’s counsel.