Inmate released early after birth of baby

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 1

Inmate released early after birth of baby

By

PETER LUKE

A Christchurch Women’s Prison inmate has been released after serving only two months of her 3%-year sentence for importing LSD.

Caroline Lisa Bedford, aged 25, has been given an early release because she gave birth to a baby girl on Christmas Eve. The father of her child, also arrested on drug charges, remains in Paparua Prison where he is serving a nine-year sentence. Bedford’s early release is made possible under section 91 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1985. This section allows the Minister of Justice to release a prison inmate before he or she would normally be eligible for remission. Two of the four grounds for such a release are that an inmate has given birth to a child or is seriously ill and unlikely to recover. The Minister of Justice could not be reached for comment last evening, but the Secretary for Justice, Mr David Oughton, confirmed that Bedford’s release had been under sec-

tion 91 of the act. Asked whether an early release was now automatic for pregnant women before the courts, Mr Oughton said that “it would be unusual for any such case not to be given favourable consideration.” Mr ' Justice Holland made specific reference

to Bedford’s pregnancy before he sentenced her in the Christchurch High Court. He said he had been told that it was not Government policy that women sentenced to prison should be kept there when they were going to deliver a child. He said he hoped this was not absolute policy because it could be an invitation to pregnant women to commit crimes, or to seek to escape the consequences of crimes by becoming pregnant. Neither Mr Oughton nor prison authorities would

say when Bedford had been released, where she was living now, or what the terms of her release were.

Bedford’s mother, Mrs Ruth Bedford, of Kaikohe, would not say where her daughter was living. Nor would she discuss the early release except to say that the system was an excellent one for which she was very grateful.

Under section 91 Bedford would be subject to certain conditions laid down by the Minister until the time she would normally have been eligible for remission. Failure to fulfil these conditions could return Bedford to prison. Bedford was already seven months pregnant when she was sentenced to jail for 3i/ 2 years. She had been convicted of importing 5000 tablets of lysergide (LSD) from Britain to New Zealand in February last year.

She was one of 11 people arrested on July 30 when the police broke what they described as a major international drugimporting ring. At her first court appearance on July 31, Bedford was described as a fruit picker of the Riverside Community, Lower Moutere, Nelson. The father of Bedford’s child, her former de facto husband, David Alistair Jarvis, was also arrested on July 30. Two days before sentencing Bedford, Mr Justice Holland sentenced Jarvis, a Nelson nurseryman, to nine years jail for importing heroin, and lysergide, dealing in lysergide and possessing heroin for supply.

His Honour noted that Jarvis’s first girlfriend had recently been jailed for four years for importing heroin. She had a child and as a result had been deprived of that child, he said.