Court rejects claims of lack of prison support

Monday 10 December 2018

Jersey's Royal Court has rejected a bid by a 40-year-old man, who was jailed after he missed his community service due to drunkenness, to get his nine-month prison sentence overturned.

Kevin McKeown's lawyer, Advocate James Bell, had appealed the Court's decision arguing that if it had known how little support McKeown would get in prison, he wouldn't have been sent there.

McKeown was sentenced to nine months in prison in October after he appeared in Court facing two counts of being drunk and incapable. The offences happened while McKeown was under a 12-month probation order imposed by the Royal Court in February 2018, as a sentence for a variety of offences. They included possession of Zolpidem, riding a bicycle while drunk, being drunk and incapable, illegal entry and stealing £300 worth of items from a flat.

At the time, the Deputy Bailiff had warned McKeown: “This is your last chance, do not be here again, do not squander the chance we are going to give you because custody will, it seems to us, inevitably follow should that be the case.”

When McKeown reappeared in Court in October, the Deputy Bailiff, Tim Le Cocq, recalled that McKeown had been given a “warning of the highest importance” in February. “We do not think you have given us any choice than to impose a custodial sentence,” he told McKeown.

Pictured: The Deputy Bailiff, Tim Le Cocq, said that McKeown had left the Court no choice but to jail him.

Advocate Bell argued that the Deputy Bailiff might have made a different decision had he known that McKeown wouldn't receive enough support in prison. He told the Bailiff, Sir William Bailhache, who was sitting with Jurats Elizabeth Dulake, Robert Christensen, Charles Blampied, Colette Crill and Jane Ronge, that Dr Tanya Engelbrecht, a consultant in substance misuse, had recommended McKeown received more help and support from the Drugs and Alcohol Service.

However, Advocate Bell said that McKeown had no access to the "comprehensive and thorough work" she had recommended.  He explained that in the nine weeks McKeown has spent at La Moye, he had only had two meetings with the psychological team, which he described as having "limited use." 

He said that as a result of his incarceration, McKeown was "going backwards on a personal level. "His mood has lowered so much that he is now prescribed anti-depressants," he added.

"The support he has had is nowhere near the level of support offered in the community," Advocate Bell said. "He is asking for help and materially he is not having that."

He argued the Court had missed an opportunity to give McKeown an "even better chance at rehabilitation," adding that he shouldn’t be punished for what could be seen as an addiction. He told the Bailiff that the lack of treatment available in the circumstances and the limited amount of support available to McKeown might have convinced the court to opt for a community service order. "We know the court were asking for information about the support that was on offer in the prison," he said.

He therefore urged the Court to release McKeown and impose a six-month probation order couple with a six-month treatment order with the package of support Dr Engelbrecht had recommended.

Pictured: Advocate James Bell told Court that McKeown was not receiving the support recommended for him by a consultant in substance misuse.

Crown Advocate Conrad Yates told the Court that the arguments put forward by Advocate Bell were not valid points of appeal. He added the help that had been offered to McKeown was line with what Dr Engelbrecht had recommended in the case McKeown was sent to prison. "There is nothing on the papers that leads the Crown to believe the sentence was wrong in principle," he said.

The Bailiff said that the evidence presented by Advocate Bell was not "essentially new," as it was already available at the time of the original sentencing hearing. He explained a probation officer had been asked whether there was support in prison. "Indeed there is," he said. "As Mr Bell puts before the Court, Mr McKeown has seen the substance misuse worker on two occasions... He has also seen a psychologist twice." 

"It seems to us the Court below was fully aware of the options available to it," he added. "There is no basis upon which we can criticise the decision of the court below."

He said that McKeown had been given a "last chance not to be squandered" and that a custodial sentence needed to be imposed.

The Court therefore rejected the application to appeal and the Bailiff turned to McKeown saying: "The time you have to spend in custody is time you can use profitably or not. We understand you are disappointed in the outcome of this application... It is for you to use that time productively, take the advice available to you in the prison as well as drugs misuse."