Robber, 74, gets sentence wish
A homeless 74-year-old man who robbed a bank because he was desperate to return to jail has been granted his wish - a five-year sentence.
Robert Newnham told staff at the Halifax in Dorchester, Dorset, that he had a gun and demanded £1,000.
Newnham, who had been just released from jail, later told police it was easier to rob a bank than try to organise his pension.
He admitted one count of robbery at Dorchester Crown Court.
Earlier the court had heard the alcoholic had become institutionalised and committed the robbery so he would be sent back to prison.
He didn't have the knowledge or the faculty to get his pension and decided the only way he could get money was to commit this offence
David Campbell, defending
David Campbell, defending, told the court Newnham had struggled to cope with his alcoholism after being released from prison.
He added: "He didn't have the knowledge or the faculty to get his pension and decided the only way he could get money was to commit this offence in the knowledge there would be only one option - that of prison."
Recorder Andrew Langdon QC, told Newnham he would serve at least half the sentence before being released on licence.
Mr Langdon said: "This was far from being a well-planned or ruthless robbery.
"You were, as you so often are, drunk - you were almost incoherent."
But he added: "It was no less frightening for the victim that you were 74 as opposed to 64 or 54 or 44."
The court heard Newnham has been offending for 36 years with almost annual shoplifting convictions since 1983.
'Nowhere to live'
He also has previous convictions for possessing offensive weapons in public.
This latest offence was his third conviction for robbery.
He was jailed for six years in November 1998 at Chichester Crown Court for robbing a bank in Worthing, West Sussex, which was later reduced to four and a half years by the Court of Appeal.
In August 2002, he was jailed for five years for robbing a bank in Croydon, London, in March 2002.
When police arrested him in Dorchester after his latest robbery he had £940 in £10 and £20 bank notes on him and had not spent any of his loot, the court heard.
The 37 days Newnham has already spent in custody will be deducted from his sentence.
Det Con Jon Bayliff, from Dorset Police, said: "He said to us it was easier for him to rob a bank than to get his pension sorted out.
"He didn't have anywhere to live and was having a few problems."
UPDATE: See this similar situation in South Africa.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
12 comments:
I reckon you should make a comment Dude. Most of us readng your Blogg expect you to educate us on this matter
Sorry but i have to disagree the man in question, Mr Newnham is a serial recidivist. The court made the right decision in finding him guilty.
I have sympathy for Mr Newnham but he did the crime and the court had to pass a custodial sentence. The man had a weapon for goodness sake.
I do agree that prison is not appropriate in his case. He should be detained under the mental health act that would be better for him.
Under the mental health act and then he would be walking the streets homeless again because the mental health act is to fuck.
Zin Zin: He didn't have a weapon. If you read it properly, he said that he had a gun. I don't believe that the purpose of prison is to accommodate desperate people who cannot cope outside. The social services are there to help with organizing his pension. Another organisation which could have assisted him was Alcoholics Anonymous. The prison system is not meant to be society's penal dustbin.
"He didn't have anywhere to live and was having a few problems." I know that this is no excuse, however, it does explain that he is a man with problems and the Welfare State should have picked him up.
anonymous 8.26: You will note that I have now posted an update which is an indication that this problem is not restricted to Britain.
When people prefer prison to outside life it shows that there is a social problem not being addressed. It is too easy to say that they are all evil and deserve prison. Who in their right mind prefers loss of freedom to liberty?
Your right i re-read the post and he didn't use a weapon.
Unfortunately he was given a custodial sentence because of his record. He should be sectioned.
Even the police had sympathy for him and that says a lot. As does the fact that he did not spend the money.
Zin Zin: It might have helped had he been given proper care in the community. I still don't feel that it was right to imprison him. If anything he is nuisance value. He was desperate, he needed to be shown that there were other alternatives to solving his problems. What's more, it would have been a darned sight cheaper than locking him up.
Sadly, if he'd just walked in off the street and asked for help from social services, he'd probably have died in the queue. It's a bit of a farce, really, whereby doing what he did was like flipping a coin - once he got to court, he would either be guided towards a wide range of services by probation or end up back inside. Either way, I'm not surprised he chose to sort things out his own way, rather than bang his head against the social service brick wall.
As for sectioning him, I didn't see any reference to mental illness - unless zinzin wants to use the Mental Health Act in a Victorian Back-to-Basics Lock-'em-in-Bedlam way ?
MECS: I have mixed feelings about the social services. They did not get involved with me until the council took me to court for non-payment of council tax. It turned out that the DWP had not paid them! I got a brand new fridge/freezer, cooker, and washer/dryer from the efforts of the social services approaching charities on my behalf.
The other side of the coin was they got on my case and so did the police, for helping the 13 year old daughter of a friend of my friend Liana. It didn't occur to them that they latched onto me and not the other way around, more precisely, they fell in love with Rocky. All I did was take Edite to the dentist because both Liana and Lasma were at work. The school contacted the social services as they thought it was strange that an English man could befriend Latvians!
One of the problems is when politicians and the media connect offences of violence with sex offences. The social services said that they wanted to risk assess me, even though my probation officer said it was not necessary. I told them either they came up with the goods or to leave me alone. Haven't seen them since.
Thanks for your respose at 9.05pm.
Is there not a "resettlement" process available to prisoners who are coming to the end of their time?
anonymous 11.16: Yes, there are resettlement prisons and courses in other prisons designed to assist resettlement. However, how effective they are is questionable. For example, in HMP Stocken the pre-release course entailed cooking classes, but I know how to cook. What I experienced on release, initially, was a discharge grant which covered two weeks when the authorities are well aware that the DWP will not give any more money for three weeks. Therefore, I was in debt straight away. Then there are the problems of gas and electric bills and water bills and council tax bills. Both the gas and electric ones went up first 25%, and then a few weeks later went up another 25%. These take up at least 50% of the state benefit.
The thing about prison is that these day to day problems are taken away from you. Suddenly on release it is tougher on the outside and easy to slip back inside where the day to day routine is organised for you.
What is missing is teaching about responsibilities and how to deal with them. It is a sad fact that some people have difficulty grasping these, whereas other take take them in their stride. The strengths and weaknesses of each individual need to be assessed and where there are weaknesses found these need to be addressed on an individual basis. Basically, it means teaching a child how to ride a bike.
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