Judge's gamble backfires

Friday 05 October 2018

One of Guernsey's Magistrates has said a gamble he made didn't pay off when a young man reoffended while serving a suspended sentence for a crime he'd committed just weeks earlier.

20-year-old Grant Harvey has been given five months youth detention for breaking four saplings at Delancey Park and damaging the bowls lawn with a rock because "he was bored."

As well as the youth detention he received, he also activated a five month suspended sentence he was given for a number of previous driving related charges earlier this year, meaning he will serve a total of 10 months inside.

The Delancey Park incident occurred just days after Harvey was given that suspended sentence by Judge Graeme McKerrell for stealing an unlocked car, then drunkenly driving it without insurance and crashing it into scaffolding and a wall, all before fleeing the scene. 

Harvey later said he was at the park on a walk because "he was bored". He attacked the saplings before hearing a member of public, so ran to the bowls pavilion to hide. There, he picked up a rock and a bench and used them to damage the lawn.

He was not caught at the scene, but turned himself in to Guernsey Police after reading a media report about the damage, asking for information. 

"Harvey was at the park with the intention of causing damage because it gave him a buzz and he 'likes damaging property belonging to other people'." - the prosecution. 

During interviews with the police, Harvey said he went to the park with the intention of doing the damage because it "gave him a buzz", and "he likes damaging property belonging to other people".

Judge McKerrell said he had made a gamble in not sending Harvey straight to youth detention after he had stolen a car and crashed it, but he had hoped the suspended sentence hanging over him might deter any reoffending: "but my gamble did not pay off.

"I do not doubt that people not in the possession of information I had might have questioned my decision not to send you to youth detention," he said.

"But since, you have missed five out of 12 meetings with probation, a fact I would describe as disgraceful. The public needs a break from your offending."

Pictured: The scene of the car crash which Harvey was convicted over and the damage at Delancey Park he admitted causing because he was "bored."