Man wanted to be in prison

Friday 27 May 2022

A man who caused criminal damage in the hope of activating his suspended prison sentence has been sent to Les Nicolles for eight months.

Richard Swirlll punched a Perspex counter in Vlade’s takeaway on the North Plantation on 1 May after being verbally confrontational to other customers.

Swirlll, 60, was charged with behaving in a disorderly manner and causing criminal damage to the counter to the amount of £115.85.

Advocate Chris Green, defending Swirlll, said that his client had been homeless for seven weeks leading up to the incident.

Swirlll had been given a suspended sentence in March this year for a similar offence in the Co-perative Pharmacy in Market Street, where CCTV showed him sweeping products off shelves and shouting aggressively. 

“Mr Swirlll had assumed he had housing after being held on remand and given a suspended sentence,” said Advocate Green. 

“Instead, he returned to find that all his belongings had been removed and destroyed and that he had been illegally evicted, leaving him homeless, which he found immensely difficult.”

Pictured: Richard Swirlll was sentenced to eight months in prison by the Magistrate's Court on Thursday. 

Advocate Green said that Swirlll had entered a guilty plea at the first opportunity when he was arrested in May and that he had been “refreshingly honest and open” and “fully accepted personal responsibility”. 

He said that Swirlll’s actions were “inexcusable” but that he had “sadly and reluctantly” decided that he would rather be on remand than homeless. 

Judge Gary Perry gave Swirlll full credit for his early guilty plea, but noted that the evidence against him was strong. 

“While I have great sympathy with your position, I regret that you are not alone in your circumstances,” said Judge Perry. 

“I cannot ignore that you have an appalling criminal record.

“When you committed these crimes, you were thinking only of yourself and not of those around you.”

Swirlll was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for the charge of behaving disorderly. In addition, he was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment to run concurrently for the criminal damage and ordered to pay £115.85 towards repairing it.

His suspended sentence of four months was also activated to run consecutively, which resulted in a total sentence of eight months in prison.