A teenager threatened to slit the throat of a police officer's two- year-old daughter then assaulted a man supervising his unpaid punishment work, a court heard.
Aston Golding's attack on a community payback officer, supervising work he was ordered to do as part of a suspended sentence for burglary, was his second breach of a sentence imposed as an alternative to jail.
So, is there no alternative now?
But despite this the 19-year-old was given another "last chance" to mend his ways by a judge yesterday.
Judge Carol Hagen...
/facepalm
...had originally sentenced Golding to a one-year suspended term, with 18 months' supervision, a three-month curfew between 9pm and 7am and 200 hours' unpaid work in November last year for a house burglary.
She told him: "I do not want to send you to prison, which is why I imposed a suspended sentence in the first place but if you fail to comply it will leave me no alternative. It is entirely up to you."
Yeah, yeah,yeah. Frankly, you have as much credibility as the defence...
Derek Perry, defending, said his client had had a "pretty horrendous" upbringing in which he had led a near-feral existence.
He said the court gave him a constructive opportunity after the breach at the police station, and his client had uttered "hollow words" for the second breach and wished to meet Mr Scott to assure him he posed no threat.
The judge was told that Aston had been complying well with unpaid work, despite the two "stupid and juvenile acts of bravado".
She also heard that, ten months into his suspended sentence, he was only now able to take the Thinking Skills programme she deemed was a necessary requirement to steer him away from crime.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: We're sending
the wrong people on this bloody course!
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