Shane Topley was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years, in August 2020 when he was 24 years old.
At that time he had been convicted for being involved in the supply of cannabis.
However, before his suspended sentence period expired in August of this year, Mr Topley was before the courts again, this time for driving without insurance, failing to comply with a parking sign and driving without a brake light.
These offences were committed in March and August 2022 and he was fined by the Magistrate’s Court and banned from driving as a result.
However, those offences put Mr Topley in breach of his suspended sentence and he was warned that they could trigger jail time for him.
Due to personal reasons it took nearly four months for the matter to be heard before the Royal Court. When Judge Catherine Fooks heard the details of the case in late November she decided that no further action was necessary.
She explained that the Court was able to activate the suspended sentence in full, activate it on a reduced term, or make no order at all.
Judge Fooks went with the final option.
The Law states that there is a presumption that the sentence will be activated in full unless the Court is of the opinion that it would be unjust to do so in view of all the circumstances which have arisen since the suspended sentence was passed, including the facts of the subsequent offence.
In Mr Topley’s case, Judge Fooks said: “This Court always considers the breach of a suspended sentence to be a very serious matter,” but she went on to explain that “in (Mr Topley’s) case, the Court is persuaded that it would be unjust to activate it in full or in part, bearing in mind the nature and circumstances of the offence of no Third Party Insurance compared with the drugs offence, for which the suspended sentence was imposed, the passage of time and your current mental health difficulties.
“In those circumstances the Court makes no order and you are free to go.”