Back to jail three days after release

Nov 12 2009 West Lothian Courier

A MAN who breached his supervised release order just days after release from a three-year sentence has been returned to prison.

Gary Barron had been jailed after he pleaded guilty to endangering the life of a Livingston woman and other road users by cutting the brake cables on her car.

The 46-year-old also admitted smashing the woman’s car window while it was parked at Carmondean Health Centre.

Barron also placed a Bible through the door of his victim’s home address with the sinister message “Burn baby burn” written in it.

Sheriff Donald Muirhead sentenced Barron to three years for the offences in March 2008 and ordered that he be supervised for a year following his release.

However, Livingston Sheriff Court heard last week that upon his release in June Barron had committed a breach of the peace almost immediately by writing to his victim. The Livingston man also refused to sign the conditions of his supervised release order.

Last week Barron appeared at the court in order for Sheriff Muirhead to decide whether to return him to prison for breaching his supervised release order.

Barron’s solicitor, Darryl Lovie, told the court his client had been sentenced to nine months for the breach of the peace offence.

And the defence agent added that to return Barron to prison for breaching the supervised release order would be akin to punishing him twice for the same offence.

Mr Lovie added: “Ultimately, technically speaking, the behaviour which has given rise to this breach has been dealt with by the criminal justice system and has resulted in a nine-month period of imprisonment.

“It would be my submission that to dispose of this breach in any way other than to allow the supervised release order to continue would be an exercise of double jeopardy, whereby he would be punished twice for the same behaviour.

“It is different from a breach of probation order, as in that case he falls to be punished for the offence which breached the probation order and also the original offence which gave rise to the probation order.”

But Sheriff Muirhead did not agree.

He said: “The purpose of the order as set out is to protect the public from serious harm so when I chose his original sentence I considered that further protection was required for the public.

“While I could have given another year or so in custody I thought it was appropriate that a supervised release order would be sufficient to protect the public.

“But he has breached this order and perhaps more seriously, whether it is sufficient or not, he has refused to sign the conditions.

“I feel that whether he has served a sentence for the breach of the peace or not it not relevant to the reasons why I imposed my original sentence.

“It seems this order is not sufficient to protect the public and therefore he should return to prison.”

Mr Lovie said he failed to see how another spell in prison for the same offence could be fair.

And the solicitor argued allowing the supervised release order to continue would allow the court to keep an eye on Barron.

“He has served a nine month sentence and could be about to serve another one year sentence,” Mr Lovie said.

“Surely the consequences of his behaviour he committed have to be taken into account?”

Sheriff Muirhead said he had taken on board the solicitor’s argument but had no choice but to return Barron to prison for 362 days.

Sheriff Muirhead said: “You can understand that I have thought about this very carefully and I have heard many capable and cognitive arguments from your solicitor.

“But it does seem to me that the original condition of this order was to protect the public.

“By failing to adhere to the conditions put on you by the local authority you have shown that order is not sufficient to provide that protection.

“So, accordingly, I am going to require you to serve a sentence from the day of the breach for 362 days.”